
0- 




FROM SUNSET RIDGE 



POEMS OLD AND NEW 



JULIA WARD HOWE 




ms^^smm^ 



BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 



t^3 



COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY JULIA WARD HOWB 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 




WOviUr^Lo ncoLiVtl)* 



^?> 



^^^v OP CO/.'(V/v 



62431 OCT 24 1893 ) 




/•fr. 



THE WORD 

Had I one of thy words, my Master^ 
With a spirit and to?ie of thine, 

I would run to the farthest Indies 
To scatter the joy divine. 

I would waken the frozen ocean 
With a billowy burst of joy : 

Stir the ships at their grim ice-moorings 
The summer passes by. 

I would enter court and hovel. 

Forgetful of mien or dress, 
With a treasure that all should ask for. 

An errand that all should bless. 

I seek for thy words, my Master, 
With a spelling vexed and slow : 

With scanty illuminations 
Ifi an alphabet of woe. 

But while I am searching, scanning 
A lesson none ask to hear, • • 

My life writeth out thy sentence 
Divinely just and dear. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Battle-Hymn of the Republic . . . . i 

Our Country 3 

Our Orders 5 

The Flag 7 

The Battle-Eucharist 11 

The New Exodus 13 

Parricide: Abraham Lincoln — April 14, 1865 • i^ 

Pardon : Wilkes Booth — April 26, 1865 • • 20 

The Telegrams 22 

The Wedding 25 

The Funeral 27 

The Charitable Visitor 29 

The Fine Lady 32 

Her Verses : A Lyrical Romance. 

I. The Legacy 34 

il Blushes 35 

iiL Wishes 36 

IV. Fears .37 

V. Resolves 38 

VI. Latin 39 

viL A Dream 41 

VIII. Waking 43 

IX. The Summons 44 

X. Waiting 45 

XL The End 47 



vi CONTENTS 

Little One 49 

The Lamb without the Fold .... 52 
Stanzas : " Of the heaven is generation " . .55 

The Smooth Portrait 56 

The Rough Sketch — S. G. H 57 

Balaklava 59 

Pio Nono 61 

Behind the Veil 63 

Privation 65 

Parables 69 

The Unwelcome Message 76 

To the Critic 78 

Philosophy 79 

Amanda's Inventory 81 

The Christ 83 

The Church 85 

The Crucifix 87 

The Price of the Divina Commedia ... 89 

A New Sculptor 91 

The Good Gualderalda 94 

The Tea-Party 96 

Warning 98 

A Vision of Palm Sunday 99 

Baby's Shoes 104 

"Servant to a Wooden Cradle" . . . .106 

A Winter Thought 108 

Spring-Blossoms 109 

Remembrance no 

Hamlet at the Boston in 

In my Valley 115 

Endeavor 117 

Meditation — I. 118 

Meditation — II 120 

The House of Rest 122 



CONTENTS vii 

A Leaf from the Bryant Chaplet . . .125 

"Save the Old South!" 129 

A Spring Thought 131 

In Cologne Cathedral 132 

The Brown Sheaves of the Belgian Harvest . 133 

In Rome— 1877 13S 

Near Amalfi 137 

Michael Angelo's Twilight 139 

Victor Emanuel — Rome, 1877 140 

Dedicatory Poem for the Kindergarten for the 

Blind: Nature 142 

The Last Sunday of October 145 

Golden Weddings 146 

Self-Communings 147 

Rubies in the Watch . . . . . . 148 

To Death 149 

The Gifts of the Wise 150 

On the Death of a Grandchild . . . .152 

After Hearing Coquelin 154 

At Home 155 

A Thought for Washing Day . . . .156 

Over the Kneading-Trough 158 

From the Window 159 

The Ladder of Prayer 160 

On Hearing One complain " There is no one to 

die and leave us money" 161 

Quatrain in Praise of E. P. P. . . . . 162 

Suppliants 163 

Middle Age 164 

Lent 166 

A Shadow in the Christmas Light — December 

25, 1892 168 

Henry Ward Beecher : Preacher, Poet, Philan- 
thropist 171 



viii CONTENTS 

What I saw from my Window — Newport, 1890 . 174 
In the Great June Heat — 1891 .... 175 

Night in the Tropics 177 

The Spirit of the Flowers 179 

At Twilight 180 

Christmas Voices. 

The Many 181 

The Three 182 

The One 183 

On the Musical Service held in Commemora- 
tion of James Russell Lowell — February 22, 

1891 185 

The Centennial of William Cullen Bryant's 

Birth 187 

A Rhyme for Memorial Day 190 



FROM SUNSET RIDGE 



BATTLE-HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC 

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of 

the Lord: 
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes 

of wrath are stored ; 
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible 

swift sword : 

His truth is marching on. 

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred 

circling camps ; 
They have builded Him an altar in the evening 

dews and damps ; 
I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and 

flaring lamps. 

His day is marching on. 

I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows 

of steel : 
" As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my 

grace shall deal ; 



2 BATTLE-HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC 

Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent 
with his heel, 

Since God is marching on." 

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never 
call retreat ; 

He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judg- 
ment-seat : 

Oh ! be swift, my soul, to answer Him ! be jubilant, 
my feet ! 

Our God is marching on. 

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across 

the sea, 
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and 

me : 
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make 

men free. 

While God is marching on. 



OUR COUNTRY 

On primal rocks she wrote her name, 
Her towers were reared on holy graves, 
The golden seed that bore her came 
Swift-winged with prayer o'er ocean waves. 

The Forest bowed his solemn crest, 
And open flung his sylvan doors ; 
Meek Rivers led the appointed Guest 
To clasp the wide-embracing shores ; 

Till, fold by fold, the broidered Land 
To swell her virgin vestments grew. 
While Sages, strong in heart and hand, 
Her virtue's fiery girdle drew. 

O Exile of the wrath of Kings ! 
O Pilgrim Ark of Liberty ! 
The refuge of divinest things. 
Their record must abide in thee. 

First in the glories of thy front 
Let the crown jewel Truth be found ; 
3 



OUR COUNTRY 

Thy right hand fling with generous wont 
Love's happy chain to furthest bound. 

Let Justice with the faultless scales 
Hold fast the worship of thy sons, 
Thy commerce spread her shining sails 
Where no dark tide of rapine runs. 

So link thy ways to those of God, 

So follow firm the heavenly laws. 

That stars may greet thee, warrior-browed, 

And storm-sped angels hail thy cause. 

O Land, the measure of our prayers, 
Hope of the world, in grief and wrong ! 
Be thine the blessing of the years. 
The gift of faith, the crown of song. 



OUR ORDERS 

Weave no more silks, ye Lyons looms, 
To deck our girls for gay delights ! 

The crimson flower of battle blooms, 
And solemn marches fill the nights. 

Weave but the flag whose bars to-day 
Drooped heavy o'er our early dead, 

And homely garments, coarse and gray. 
For orphans that must earn their bread ! 

Keep back your tunes, ye viols sweet, 
That poured delight from other lands ! 

Rouse there the dancers' restless feet : 
The trumpet leads our warrior bands. 

And ye that wage the war of words 
With mystic fame and subtle power. 

Go, chatter to the idle birds. 
Or teach the lesson of the hour ! 

Ye Sibyl Arts, in one stern knot 
Be all your offices combined ! 
5 



OUR ORDERS 

Stand close, while Courage draws the lot, 
The destiny of human kind. 

And if that destiny could fail, 

The sun should darken in the sky, 

The eternal bloom of Nature pale, 

And God, and Truth, and Freedom die ! 



THE FLAG 

There 's a flag hangs over my threshold, whose 

folds are more dear to me 
Than the blood that thrills in my bosom its earnest 

of liberty ; 
And dear are the stars it harbors in its sunny field 

of blue 
As the hope of a further heaven, that lights all our 

dim lives through. 

But now should my guests be merry, the house is in 

holiday guise, 
Looking out through its burnished windows like a 

score of welcoming eyes. 
Come hither, my brothers, who wander in saintli- 

ness or in sin ; 
Come hither, ye pilgrims of Nature, my heart doth 

invite you in. 

My wine is not of the choicest, yet bears it an hon- 
est brand ; 

And the bread that I bid you lighten, I break with 
no sparing hand : 
7 



8 THE FLAG 

But pause, ere ye pass to taste it, one act must ac- 
complished be, — 

Salute the flag in its virtue, before ye sit down with 
me. 

The flag of our stately battles, not struggles of 
wrath and greed, 

Its stripes were a holy lesson, its spangles a death- 
less creed : 

'T was red with the blood of freemen, and white 
with the fear of the foe ; 

And the stars that fight in their courses 'gainst ty- 
rants its symbols know. 

Come hither, thou son of my mother ; we were 

reared in the self-same arms ; 
Thou hast many a pleasant gesture, thy mind hath 

its gifts and charms ; 
But my heart is as stern to question as mine eyes 

are of sorrows full : 
Salute the flag in its virtue, or pass on where others 

rule ! 

Thou lord of a thousand acres, with heaps of un- 
counted gold, 

The steeds of thy stall are haughty, thy lackeys 
cunning and bold : 



THE FLAG 9 

I envy no jot of thy splendor, I rail at thy follies 

none, — 
Salute the flag in its virtue, or leave my poor house 

alone ! 

Fair lady with silken flouncings, high waving thy 
stainless plume, 

We welcome thee to our banquet, a flower of cost- 
liest bloom. 

Let an hundred maids live widowed to furnish thy 
bridal bed ; 

But pause where the flag doth question, and bend 
thy triumphant head. 

Take down now your flaunting banner; for a scout 

comes breathless and pale, 
With the terror of death upon him ; of failure is all 

his tale : 
" They have fled while the flag waved o'er them, 

they 've turned to the foe their back ; 
They are scattered, pursued, and slaughtered ; the 

fields are all rout and wrack." 

Pass hence then, the friends I gathered, a goodly 

company, 
All ye that have manhood in you, go, perish for 

Liberty ! 



lo THE FLAG 

But I and the babes God gave me will wait with 

uplifted hearts, 
With the firm smile ready to kindle, and the will to 
perform our parts. 

When the last true heart lies bloodless, when the 

fierce and the false have won, 
I '11 press in turn to my bosom each daughter and 

either son : 
Bid them loose the flag from its bearings, and we '11 

lay us down to rest 
With the glory of home about us, and its freedom 

locked in our breast. 



THE BATTLE-EUCHARIST 

Above the seas of gold and glass 
The Christ, transfigured, stands to-day ; 
Below, in troubled currents, pass 
The tidal fates of man away. 

Through that environed blessedness 
Our sorrow cannot wholly rise, 
Nor his swift sympathy redress 
The anguish that in Nature lies. 

Yet mindful from his banquet sends 
The guest of God a cup of wine, 
And shares a morsel with his friends, 
Who, wondering, wait without the shrine. 



Remain with us, O Lord ! remain ; 
Our faint souls will not let thee go : 
Bear with us this surpassing pain, 
Abide our sacrament of woe, 

While ghostly hands from battle-fields 
Reproach with succor long delayed. 



12 THE BATTLE-EUCHARIST 

And all the wealth our treasure yields 
Buys not the power to hasten aid. 

O Christ, that multipliest bread ! 
Thou Feeder of the multitude, 
On them thy heart's redemption shed, 
Feed our beloved with heavenly food ; 

And open wide the gates of thought, 
That, sitting at this feast divine, 
Our faith may see deliverance wrought 
By pangs that bear the mark of thine. 



THE. NEW EXODUS 

" Forsake this flowery garden ! " the frowning An- 
gel said j 

"Its vines no more may feed thee, compel from 
stones thy bread j 

Pursue the veins deep buried that hide thy wine 
and oil : 

Fruit shalt thou find with sorrow, and children rear 
in toil." 

Oh ! not in heathen vengeance the winged apostle 

spoke, 
Nor savage retribution the blooming fetters broke. 
Man had an arm for labor, a strength to conquer 

pain, 
A brain to plot and study, a will to serve and reign. 

That will with slow arraying confronts itself with 
fate. 

The pair unconscious twining the arches of the 
State. 

Earth keeps her fairest garlands to crown the tire- 
less spade ; 

The fields are white with harvest, the hireling's fee 
is paid. 

13 



14 THE NEW EXODUS 

From tented field to city, to palace, and to throne, 
Man builds with work his kingdom, and makes the 

world his own. 
All welded with conditions is empire's golden 

ring: 
The king must keep the peasant, the peasant feed 

the king. 

The word of God once spoken, from truth is never 

lost ; 
The high command once given, earth guards with 

jealous cost. 
By this perplexing lesson, men build their busy 

schemes : 
" The way of comfort lies not, kind Eden, through 

thy dreams." 

I see a land before me, where manhood in its pride 

Forgot the solemn sentence, the wage of toil de- 
nied : 

"To wealth and lofty station some royal road must 
be; 

Our brother, bound and plundered, shall earn us 
luxury. 

" One half of knowledge give him for service and 

for skill. 
The nobler half withholding, that moulds the manly 

will : 



THE NEW EXODUS 15 

From justice bar his pleadings, from mercy keep 

his prayers ; 
His daughters for our pleasure, his sons to serve 

our heirs." 

Again the frowning Angel commandeth to depart. 
With fiery scourge of terror, with want and woe of 

heart : 
" Go forth ! the earth is weary to bear unrighteous 

feetj 
Release your false possession ; go, work that ye 

may eat. 

"Bring here the light of knowledge, the scale of 
equal rule ; 

Bring the Republic's weapons, the forum and the 
school : 

The Dagon of your worship is broken on his shrine ; 

The palm of Christian mercy brings in the true di- 
vine." 

So from your southern Eden the flaming sword 

doth drive 3 
Your lesson is appointed ; go, learn how workmen 

thrive ! 
Not sloth has fee of plenty, nor pride of stately 

crest ; 
But thou of God beloved, O Labor crowned with 

rest ! 



PARRICIDE 

Abraham Lincoln — April 14, 1865 

O'er the warrior gauntlet grim 
Late the silken glove we drew, 
Bade the watch-fires slacken dim 
In the dawn's auspicious hue. 

Stayed the armbd heel ; 

Still the clanging steel ; 
Joys unwonted thrilled the silence through. 

Glad drew near the Easter tide ; 
And the thoughts of men anew 
Turned to Him who spotless died 
For the peace that none shall rue. 

Out of mortal pain 

This abiding strain 
Issued : " Peace, my peace, I give to you." 

Musing o'er the silent strings, 
By their apathy opprest, 
Waiting for the spirit-wings. 
To be touched and soul-possessed, 

"I am dull," I said: 

" Treason is not dead ; 
Still in ambush lurks that shivering guest." 



PARRICIDE 17 

Then a woman's shriek of fear 
Smote us in its arrowy flight ; 
And a wonder wild and drear 
Did the hearts of men unite. 

Has the seed of crime 

Reached its flowering-time, 
That it shoots to this audacious height ? 

Then, as frosts the landscape change, 
Stiffening from the summer's glow. 
Grew the jocund faces strange. 
Lay the loftiest emblem low : 

Kings are of the past, 

Suffered still to last ; 
These twin crowns the present did bestow. 

Fair assassin, murder white, 
With thy serpent speed avoid 
Each unsullied household light, 
Every conscience unalloyed. 

Neither heart nor home 

Where good angels come 
Suffer thee in nearness to abide. 

Slanderer of the gracious brow, 
The untiring blood of youth, 
Servant of an evil vow, 
Of a crime that beggars ruth, 



l8 PARRICIDE 

Treason was thy dam, 
Wolfling, when the Lamb, 
The Anointed, met thy venomed tooth. 

With the righteous did he fall. 
With the sainted doth he lie ; 
While the gibbet's vultures call 
Thee, that, 'twixt the earth and sky. 

Disavowed of both 

In their Godward troth. 
Thou mayst make thy poor amend, and die. 

If it were my latest breath, 
Doomed his bloody end to share, 
I would brand thee with his death 
As a deed beyond despair. 

Since the Christ was lost 

For a felon's cost. 
None like thee of vengeance should beware. 

Leave the murderer, noble song, 
Helpless in the toils of fate : 
To the just thy meeds belong, 
To the martyr, to the state. 

When the storm beats loud 

Over sail and shroud. 
Tunefully the seaman cheers his mate. 

Never tempest lashed the wave 
But to leave it fresher calm ; 



PARRICIDE 19 

Never weapon scarred the brave 
But their blood did purchase balm. 

God hath writ on high 

Such a victory 
As uplifts the nation with its psalm. 

Honor to the heart of love, 
Honor to the peaceful will, 
Slow to threaten, strong to move. 
Swift to render good for ill ! 

Glory crowns his end. 

And the captive's friend 
From his ashes makes us freemen still. 



PARDON 

Wilkes Booth — April 26, 1865 

Pains the sharp sentence the heart in whose wrath 
it was uttered, 

Now thou art cold ; 
Vengeance, the headlong, and Justice, with purpose 
close muttered. 

Loosen their hold. 

Death brings atonement j he did that whereof ye 
accuse him, — 

Murder accurst ; 
But, from that crisis of crime in which Satan did 
lose him, 

Suffered the worst. 

Harshly the red dawn arose on a deed of his doing. 

Never to mend ; 
But harsher days he wore out in the bitter pursuing 

And the wild end. 

So lift the pale flag of truce, wrap those mysteries 
round him, 

In whose avail 



PARDON 21 

Madness that moved, and the swift retribution that 
found him, 

Falter and fail. 

So the soft purples that quiet the heavens with 
mourning, 

Willing to fall, 
Lend him one fold, his illustrious victim adorning 

With wider pall. 

Back to the cross, where the Saviour uplifted in 
dying 

Bade all souls live, 
Turns the reft bosom of Nature, his mother, low 
sighing. 

Greatest, forgive 1 



THE TELEGRAMS 

Bring the hearse to the station, 

When one shall demand it, late ; 
For that dark consummation 

The traveler must not wait. 
Men say not by what connivance 

He slid from his weight of woe, 
Whether sickness or weak contrivance, 

But we know him glad to go. 

On and on and ever on ! 
What next ? 

Nor let the priest be wanting 

With his hollow eyes of prayer. 
While the sexton wrenches, panting. 

The stone from the dismal stair. 
But call not the friends who left him 

When fortune and pleasure fled : 
Mortality hath not bereft him, 

That they should confront him, dead. 
On and on and ever on ! 
What next } 

22 



THE TELEGRAMS 23 

Bid my mother be ready : 

We are coming home to-night : 
Let my chamber be still and shady 

With the softened nuptial light. 
We have traveled so gayly, madly, 

No shadow hath crossed our way ; 
Yet we come back like children, gladly, 

Joy-spent with our holiday. 

On and on and ever on ! 
What next .? 

Stop the train at the landing, 

And search every carriage through ; 
Let no one escape your handing, 

None shiver, or shrink from view. 
Three blood-stained guests expect him ; 

Three murders oppress his soul ; 
Be strained every nerve to detect him 

Who feasted, and killed, and stole. 
On and on and ever on ! 
What next ? 

Be rid of the notes they scattered ; 

The great house is down at last ; 
The image of gold is shattered, 

And never can be recast. 
The bankrupts show leaden features, 

And weary, distracted looks. 



24 THE TELEGRAMS 

While harpy-eyed, wolf-souled creatures 
Pry through their dishonored books. 
On and on and ever on ! 
What next ? 

Let him hasten, lest worse befall him. 

To look on me, ere I die : 
I will whisper one curse to appall him, 

Ere the black flood carry me by. 
His bridal ? The friends forbid it ; 

I have shown them his proofs of guilt ; 
Let him hear, with my laugh, who did it ; 

Then hurry. Death, as thou wilt ! 
On and on and ever on ! 
What next .? 

Thus the living and dying daily 

Flash forward their wants and words, 
. While still on Thought's slender railway 
Sit scathless the little birds : 
They heed not the sentence dire 

By magical hands exprest. 
And only the sun's warm fire 
Stirs softly their happy breast. 
On and on and ever on ! 
God next ! 



THE WEDDING 

In her satin gown so fine 
Trips the bride within the shrine. 
Waits the street to see her pass, 
Like a vision in a glass. 
Roses crown her peerless head : 
Keep your lilies for the dead ! 

Something of the light without 
Enters with her, veiled about ; 
Sunbeams, hiding in her hair, 
Please themselves with silken wear ; 
Shadows point to what shall be 
In the dim futurity. 

Wreathe with flowers the weighty yoke 
Might of mortal never broke. 
From the altar of her vows 
To the grave's unsightly house 
Measured is the path, and made : 
All the work is planned and paid. 

As a girl, with ready smile. 
Where shall rise some ponderous pile, 
25 



26 THE WEDDING 

On the chosen, festal day, 
Turns the initial sod away, 
So the bride with fingers frail 
Founds a temple or a jail, — 

Or a palace, it may be, 
Flooded full with luxury. 
Open yet to deadliest things, 
And the Midnight Angel's wings. 
Keep its chambers purged with prayer 
Faith can guard it. Love is rare. 

Organ, sound thy wedding-tunes ! 
Priest, recite the sacred runes ! 
Hast no ghostly help nor art 
Can enrich a selfish heart. 
Blessing bind 'twixt. greed and gold, 
Joy with bloom for bargain sold ? 

Hail, the wedded task of life ! 
Mending husband, moulding wife. 
Hope brings labor, labor peace ; 
Wisdom ripens, goods increase ; 
Triumph crowns the sainted head, 
And our lilies wait the dead. 



THE FUNERAL 

As I passed down the street, 

Sighing and singing, 
Making its pavement sweet 

With flowery flinging, 
Came the unwelcome feet, 

Sad burthen bringing. 

Death ! I forgot thou shouldst 
Harvest this morning : 

Not for thy festival 
Was my adorning ; 

Yet to my heart I take, 
Duteous, thy warning. 

Out of the pleasant day 
Darkly they lay thee : 

Shall thine accustomed haunts 
No more display thee ; 

Shall thy high house of life 
Cease to obey thee. 

Done are thy deeds of good, 
And thy malefeasance ; 

27 



28 THE FUNERAL 

Ended the years of dole, 
And the short pleasance : 

Thou art a power no more, 
Only a presence. 

Hot tears bedim the eyes 
That would behold thee ; 

Death-spasms wring the hearts 
Whose loves infold thee ; 

While monumental Grief 
Waits to inmould thee. 

Whither, ah ! whither gone. 
From our wild weeping ? 

For what new threshing-floor 
Bound with strange reaping ? 

Taken, we know no more, 
Into God's keeping. 



THE CHARITABLE VISITOR 

She carries no flag of fashion, her clothes are but 

passing plain, 
Though she comes from a city palace all jubilant 

with her reign : 
She threads a bewildering alley, with ashes and 

dust thrown out, 
And fighting and cursing children, who mock as she 

moves about. 

Why walk you this way, my lady, in the snow and 

slippery ice ? 
These are not the shrines of virtue, — here misery 

lives, and vice : 
Rum helps the heart of starvation to a courage bold 

and bad ; 
And women are loud and brawling, while men sit 

maudlin and mad. 

I see in the corner yonder the boy with a broken 

arm. 
And the mother whose blind wrath did it, — strange 

guardian from childish harm ! 
29 



30 THE CHARITABLE VISITOR 

That face will grow bright at your coming, but your 

steward might come as well, 
Or better the Sunday teacher that helped him to 

read and spell. 

Oh ! I do not come of my willing, with froward and 

restless feet : 
I have pleasant tasks in my chamber, and friends 

well-beloved to greet. 
To follow the dear Lord Jesus, I walk in the storm 

and snow ; 
Where I find the trace of his footsteps, there lilies 

and roses grow. 

He said that to give was blessed, more blessed than 

to receive ; 
But what could he take, dear angels, of all that we 

had to give, 
Save a little pause of attention, and a little thrill of 

delight, 
When the dead were waked from their slumbers, 

and the blind recalled to sight ? 

Say, the King came forth with the morning, and 

opened his palace doors, 
Thence flinging his gifts like sunbeams that break 

upon marble floors ; 
But the wind with wild pinions caught them, and 

carried them round about : 



THE CHARITABLE VISITOR 31 

Though I looked till mine eyes were dazzled, I 
never could make them out. 

But he bade me go far and find them, " go seek 

them with zeal and pain : 
The hand is most welcome to me that brings me 

mine own again ; 
And those who follow them furthest, with faithful 

searching and sight, 
Are brought with joy to my presence, and sit at my 

feet all night." 

So, hither and thither walking, I gather them 
broadly cast ; 

Where yonder young face doth sicken, it may be 
the best and last. 

In no void or vague of duty I come to his aid to- 
day : 

I bring God's love to his bedside, and carry God's 
gift away. 



THE FINE LADY 

Her heart is set on folly, 
An amber gathering straws : 

She courts each poor occurrence, 
Heeds not the heavenly laws. 
Pity her ! 

She has a little beauty. 

And she flaunts it in the day. 

While the selfish wrinkles, spreading, 
Steal all its charm away. 

Pity her ! 

She has a little money. 

And she flings it everywhere : 
'T is a gewgaw on her bosom, 

A tinsel in her hair. 

Pity her ! 

She has a little feeling, 

She spreads a foolish net 
That snares her own weak footsteps. 
Not his for whom 't is set. 

Pity her ! 
32 



THE FINE LADY 33 

Ye harmless household drudges, 

Your draggled daily wear 
And horny palms of labor 

A softer heart may bear. 

Pity her ! 

Ye steadfast ones, whose burthens 
Weigh valorous shoulders down, 

With hands that cannot idle, 
And brows that will not frown, 
Pity her ! 

Ye saints, whose thoughts are folded 

As graciously to rest 
As a dove's stainless pinions 

Upon her guileless breast, 

Pity her ! 

But most, ye helpful angels 

That send distress and work, 
Hot task and sweating forehead. 

To heal man's idle irk, 

Pity her ! 



HER VERSES : A LYRICAL ROMANCE 
I 

THE LEGACY 

Her verses, — where she Hes 
The tall trees bend and whisper ; 
Soft voices from the skies 
Recall the tuneful lisper : 
The sunny nooks she loved, 
Her flower-beds untended, 
Afflict us with neglect, 
Like fair things ill-befriended. 

Yet 't is so merciful 
That Time wipes out our traces, 
And that the thick-set moss 
Grows o'er our darkened faces, 
Till but some faithful heart 
Our faded traits comprises. 
And sorrow, dead in earth, 
In harmless beauty rises. 

She had a guileless heart. 
And Life was rude to grieve it ; 
34 



HER VERSES: A LYRICAL ROMANCE 35 

She had a soul of fire, 
And Heaven is kind to shrive it : 
The years are past that said, 
" Keep long this seal unbroken ; 
But, when my name 's forgot, 
Then let my words be spoken." 

So, standing at her grave, 

With trembling hands I gather 

The blossoms of her life, 

Bedimmed with rust and weather. 

O World ! while thus I wave 

Her dead hand's blessing o'er thee, 

Think 't is my other self 

Whose heart lies bare before thee. 



II 

BLUSHES 

I CANNOT make him know my love j 

Nor from myself conceal 
The pangs that rankle in my breast, 

Sharper than flame or steel. 

Could I but reach a hand to him, 

My very finger's thrill 
Would close, like tendrils, round the strength 

Of his beloved will. 



36 HER VERSES: A LYRICAL ROMANCE 

Could I but lift mine eyes to his, 

My glowing soul, unrolled, 
Would flash like sunset on his sight, 

In fiery red and gold. 

Yet should fine spirits keep their bounds, 

Nor rudely snatch at bliss : 
The very sun would lose his light 

In giving it amiss. 

So, when I die, cross tenderly 

My palms upon my breast, 
And let some faithful hand compose 

My tired limbs to rest. 

But thou shalt fold this kerchief white, 

And lay it on my face. 
Saying, " She died of love untold ; 

But she is dead in grace." 

Ill 

WISHES 

I WOULD I might approach thee. 
As the moon draws near the cloud, 

With still and stately courtesy, 
Clear-eyed and solemn-browed ; 

But, when their meeting comes, her face 
In his deep breast doth hide, 



HER VERSES: A LYRICAL ROMANCE 37 

The heavens are still, in solemn joy, 
The world is glorified. 

I would I might approach thee, 

As music, swift afloat, 
Surprises, with its sudden joy, 

A wanderer in a boat : 
The sordid walls of life fall down 

Before that clarion clear ; 
A passing rapture oft recalled 

When days grow blank and drear. 

I would I might approach thee, 

As breezes fresh and pure, 
Unsighted, breathe on fevered lips, 

And throbbing temples cure ; 
As Joy and Love, and healthful Hope, 

Visit some chosen heart. 
And enter, softly welcomed there, 

And never more depart. 



IV 

FEARS 

Oh ! how shall I grow fair enough 

For thee to look upon ? 
I am but the poor shallow water 

That glistens in the sun, 



38 HER VERSES: A LYRICAL ROMANCE 

That darkens, mean and beautiless, 
When his brief glance moves on. 

Oh ! what shall raise me to thy sphere ? 

How shall my thoughts aspire ? 
I am the string that warbles to 

A poet's touch of fire : 
He flings it by, — how dumb and low 

Sinks the forgotten lyre ! 

Remember, then, my humble heart 

That trembled with surprise ; 
Recall the faith that dared to meet 

The question of thine eyes : 
Shall these not make me dear to thee 

Through Love's eternities ? 



V 

RESOLVES 

You never knew how cruel kind 
Was the caress you gave ; 

You never meant to light a flame 
Should smoulder in my grave. 

From gentle studies, arts beloved, 
My thoughts all fix on thee ; 



HER VERSES: A LYRICAL ROMANCE 39 

And Peace dissolves before my sight, 
And Duty cannot be. 

Oh ! speak one word so kindly rude, 

So greatly stern and true, 
That I may kiss thy feet for shame. 

And rise, absolved and new. 

Then with some song of noblest worth 

I '11 pay this truant rhyme. 
And stretch my stolen broidery to 

The boundless tasks of Time. 



VI 
LATIN 

Here amid shadows, lovingly embracing, 
Dropt from above by apple-trees unfruitful. 
With a chance scholar, caught and held to help 
me. 

Read I in Horace ; 

Lost in the figures, lawless in the metrum, 
Piecing the classic phrase with homespun English, 
Bridging doubtful meanings with such daring fic- 
tions 

As move his wonder. 



40 HER VERSES: A LYRICAL ROMANCE 

Dust lay condensed on the covers lexiconic, — 
Tacitus above stairs, quasi sub-neglected, 
Very little progress since I saw your godship. 
Day to be remembered ! 

Avh, sweet Horace, all thy wonder graces 
(Soul of perfection, with a change of rainbows) 
Less must delight me than thy fervent nature, 
Foremost in friendship. 

" We with one bound will pursue the silent journey : 
Ibimus, ibimus, — let one urn contain us ! " 
Which would survive, to choke Love's glowing em- 
bers 

With Life's gray ashes ? 

Happy thy Maecenas ! happier thou to praise him, 
Twining thy best beauties round the brow thou 

lovest : 
Oh ! to nobly name whom the deep heart doth 

worship 

Is a boon most holy. 

Yonder by the high-road, from the post-town lead- 
ing, 
Doth at times appear a worn and dusty carriage : 
Two white bony horses, rudely loricated. 
Drag it behind them. 



HER VERSES: A LYRICAL ROMANCE 41 

In the carriage mostly come my born relations, 
Very keen to see me in the rural season ; 
Board and bedding gratis, compliments at parting : 
" Come again next summer." 

Oh ! if one I knew of hastened down the high-road, 
Lijce a heaven-sent angel, present to petition. 
Would I sit searching thy disjointed meanings, 
Horace the Dainty ? 

Should I not then fling far the well-bound volume, 
Decent in sheep-skins thou wert never blest with ? 
For this heart of mine, high leaping, wild rejoicing, 
Then would be the poet. 



VII 

A DREAM 

A WOMAN came, wearing a veil j 
Her features are burning and pale ; 
At the door of the shrine doth she kneel, 
And waileth out, bowing her head, 
" Ye men of remembrance and dread. 
Exorcise the pangs that I feel. 

A boat that is torn with the tide, 
A mountain with flame in its side 
That rends its devouring way, 



42 HER VERSES: A LYRICAL ROMANCE 

A feather the whirlwind lifts high, 
Are not wilder or weaker than I, 
Since Love makes my bosom his prey. 

Ye Saints, I fall down at your feet ; 
Thou Virgin, so piteous to greet, 
Reach hither the calm of your hands ; 
Ye statues of power and of art, 
Let your marble weight lie on my heart, 
Hold my madness with merciful bands." 

The priest takes his candle and book 
With the pity of scorn in his look, 
And chants the dull Mass through his teeth ; 
But the penitent, clasping his knees, 
Cries, " Vain as the sough of the breeze 
Are thy words to the anguish of death." 

The priest, with reproval and frown. 

Bids the listless attendant reach down 

The water that sprinkles from sin. 
" Your water is water," she cries : 
" The further its foolishness flies, 

The fiercer the flames burn within." 

" Get thee hence to the cell and the scourge ! " 

The priest in his anger doth urge, 
" Or the fire of the stake thou shalt prove, 



HER VERSES: A LYRICAL ROMANCE 43 

Maintaining with blasphemous tongue 
That the mass-book and censer, high swung, 
Cannot cast out the demon of Love." 



Then the Highest stept down from his place, 
While the depths of his wonderful face 
The thrill of compassion did move : 
" Come, hide thee," he cried, " on this breast ; 
I summon the weary to rest ; 
With love I exorcise thy love." 

VIII 
WAKING 

Soft as the touch of twilight that restores 

The hard-bound earth from summer sweat and 

strain, 
This dream of morning soothed my fevered soul, 
And gave me to my gentleness again. 

So, bathed in pearly sweets, I oped mine eyes. 
And saw the beauty that the morning paints, 
And saw the shadows strengthen in the sun 
With the calm willingness of dying saints. 

Oh ! had I then to passion died, such peace 
Had filled my parting as transfigures Death ; 
But thou didst turn me backward with a word. 
And Love celestial fled Love's human breath. 



44 HER VERSES: A LYRICAL ROMANCE 

IX 

THE SUMMONS 

I EXPECT you in September 
With the glory of the year : 
You shall make the Autumn precious, 
And the death of Summer dear ; 
You shall help the days that shorten, 
With a lengthening of delight ; 
You shall whisper long-drawn blisses 
Through the gathering screen of night. 

I will lead you, dream-enchanted. 
Where the fairest grasses grow ; 
I will hear your murmured music 
Where thfe fresh winds pipe and blow. 
On the brown heath, weird-encircled, 
Shall our noiseless footsteps fall, — 
We, communing with twin counsel. 
Each to other all in all. 

Leave the titles that men owe thee ; 
Like the first pair let us meet ; 
Name the world all over to me, 
New-created at thy feet ; 
Gentle task and duteous learning, 
I will hang upon thy breath 
With the tender zeal of childhood, 
With the constancy of death. 



HER VERSES: A LYRICAL ROMANCE 45 

What shall be the gods declare not, — 
They who stamp Love's burning coin 
Into spangles of a moment, 
Into stars that deathless shine. 
Oh ! the foolish music lingers ; 
For the theme is heavenly dear : 
I expect you in September, 
With the glories of the year. 

X 

WAITING 

I HAVE set my house in order 

For a stately step to grace ; 

I have bidden the mirrors keep record 

Of a never-forgotten face ; 

I have brightened with thrifty cunning 

The walls of my sylvan home : 

They are beautiful in the shadow 

Of him who vouchsafes to come. 

I have swept the leaves from the greensward, 

And the gray stones twinkle and shine ; 

I have loosened each fretful tangle 

Of the twisted cedar and vine ; 

I have ordered the waters waste not 

Their splendors upon mine eye, 

But to wait, like my heart, for thy footsteps, 

And gush when thou drawest nigh. 



46 HER VERSES: A LYRICAL ROMANCE 

Myself I would dress for thy presence ; 
But there I must stand and weep, 
Since the years that teach Love's value 
His vanishing treasure sweep. 
But words that are spells of magic, 
And merciful looks and ways, 
Shall brighten the rusted features 
That faded when none did praise. 

Thou gracious and lordly creature, 

Do the trees, when thou passest by, 

Let down their fair arms to enlace thee, 

And the flowers reach up to thine eye ? 

Do they wait, all athrill, when thou passest. 

For a touch of thy life divine ? 

Do they fold their meek hands when thou fleetest, 

And die for a breath of thine ? 

My heart has leapt forth to embrace thee ; 
It clings, like a babe, to thy breast ; 
And my blood is a storm-stirred ocean 
That waits for the word of rest. 
Time loses his paltry measure 
Now that Love's eterne draws near, 
And the lingering moments that part us 
Are endless in hope and fear. 

Oh ! what if, beyond thy sunshine, 
Some gathering storm should brood ? 



HER VERSES: A LYRICAL ROMANCE 47 

Thy rapture, forsaking, shall leave me 
Alone with God's orphanhood. 
The heart thou hast blest so inly 
Shall wait no inglorious breath : 
Come hither, then, ye who walk twinly ; 
So enter here. Love and Death ! 

XI 

THE END 

Death entered where Love was waiting 
With the frosted lily-crown, — 
Pale pontiff, shadow-mating. 
Waving the life-flame down. 

His slaves, with robes of whiteness, 
Shrouded the glowing face : 
Gone is the vision of brightness, 
A ghost is in its place. 

They bore her with solemn knelling, 
By saintly crypt and nave. 
To her new-appointed dwelling, — 
The cloisters of the grave. 

There, 'mong the silent sisters, 
She tarries, with folded palms : 
Where the passing torch-light glisters, 
They answer in whispered psalms. 



48 HER VERSES: A LYRICAL ROMANCE 

But as one the convent hideth, 
At the festivals of God, 
From the covert where she bideth, 
Sends holy song abroad ; 

So she, whom then we buried 
With manifold sob and strain, 
Sends back her song, love-varied, 
To waken our joy again, — 

Sends back the flame of fervor 
That warms not her frozen breast, 
To guide Love's true deserver 
To her place in the fields of rest. 



LITTLE ONE 

My dearest boy, my sweetest ! 
For paradise the meetest ; 
The child that never grieves me, 
The love that never leaves me ; 
The lamb by Jesu tended ; 
The shadow, star befriended ; 
In winter's woe and straining, 
The blossom still remaining. 

Days must not find me sitting 
Where shadows dim are flitting 
Across the grassy measure 
That hides my buried treasure, 
Nor bent with tears and sighing 
More prone than thy down-lying 
I have a freight to carry, 
A goal, — I must not tarry. 

If men would garlands give me, 
If steadfast hearts receive me, 
Their homage I 'd surrender 
For one embrace most tender -, 
49 



50 LITTLE ONE 

One kiss, with sorrow in it, 
To hold thee but one minute, 
One word, our tie recalling, 
Beyond the gulf appalling. 

Since God's device doth take thee, 
My fretting should forsake thee ; 
For many a mother borrows 
Her comfort from the sorrows 
Her vanished darling misses, 
Transferred to heavenly blisses. 
But I must ever miss thee. 
Must ever call and kiss thee, 
With thy sweet phantom near me, 
And only God to hear me. 

The pomp with which I mourn thee, 
I who have proudly borne thee. 
Is not of weary sables. 
Nor unsubstantial fables ; 
While thou, in white apparel, 
And crowned, above my laurel, 
Passest from my discerning 
To more transcendent learning. 

When thou wert taken from me, 
Did better art become me. 
And painful satisfaction 
Wrung from some noblest action. 



LITTLE ONE 51 

I mourn in simpler praying, 
More work and less delaying, 
In hope enforced that mellows 
The crudeness of thy fellows, 
Who, past thy lovely season, 
Attempt the wars of Reason ; 
I mourn thee with endeavor 
That loves and grieves forever. 



THE LAMB WITHOUT THE FOLD 

Whene'er I close the door at night, 
And turn the creaking key about, 
A pang renewed assails my heart — 
I think, my darling is shut out. 

Think that, beneath these starry skies, 
He wanders, with his little feet ; 
The pines stand, hushed in glad surprise. 
The garden yields its tribute sweet. 

Thro' every well-known path and nook 
I see his angel footsteps glide, 
As guileless as the Pascal Lamb 
That kept the infant Saviour's side. 

His earnest eye, perhaps, can pierce 
The gloom in which his parents sit j 
He wonders what has changed the house. 
And why the cloud hangs over it. 

He passes with a pensive smile — 
Why do they linger to grow old. 
And what the burthen on their hearts ? 
On /lim shall sorrow have no hold. 

52 



THE LAMB WITHOUT THE FOLD 53 

Within the darkened porch I stand — 
Scarce knowing why, I linger long ; 
Oh ! could I call thee back to me, 
Bright bird of heaven, with sooth or song ! 

But no — the wayworn wretch shall pause 
To bless the shelter of this door ; 
Kinsman and guest shall enter in, 
But my lost darling never more. 

Yet, waiting on his gentle ghost. 
From sorrow's void, so deep and dull, 
Comes a faint breathing of delight, 
A presence calm and beautiful. 

I have him, not in outstretched arms, 
I hold him, not with straining sight. 
While in blue depths of quietude 
Drops, like a star, my still " Good-night." 

Thus, nightly, do I bow my head 
To the Unseen, Eternal force ; 
Asking sweet pardon of my child 
For yielding him in Death's divorce. 

He turned away from childish plays. 
His baby toys he held in scorn ; 
He loved the forms of thought divine. 
Woods, flowers, and fields of waving corn. 



54 THE LAMB WITHOUT THE FOLD 

And then I knew, my little one 
Should by no vulgar love be taught, 
But by the symbols God has given 
To solemnize our common thought ; 

The mystic angles, three in one, 
The circling serpent's faultless round. 
And, in far glory dim, the Cross, 
Where Love o'erleaps the human bound. 



STANZAS 

Of the heaven is generation : 

Fruition in the deep earth lies : 

And where the twain have broadest blending, 

The stateliest growths of life arise. 

Set, then, thy root in earth more firmly : 
Raise thy fair head erect and free : 
And spread thy loving arms so widely, 
That heaven and earth shall meet in thee. 

55 



THE SMOOTH PORTRAIT 

How lightly hast thou learned of human grief ! 
Thy flesh has 'scaped the sacrificial knife — 
Men quote the pride of a too happy life 
To set thy even virtues in relief. 

The brow's serenity — the head thrown back 
That the audacious eyes may smile to heaven ; 
The mouth, with not one tender muscle riven 
By the impatient torture of the rack ; 

A joy self-continent, that overflows 
The marble of the face, for beauty's sake ; 
Heroic laughter, such as day might wake 
In a god's heart, with rosy, ringing blows. 

Oh ! happy soul — upon thy placid breast 
The worn eye sinks, and has so much of calm, 
While the clear voice is medicine and balm 
To heal the aguish fever of unrest. 

Yet there are closets of the inner shrine 

Where we are bidden from the flowery day, 

To stand and give the awful voices sway. 

And, holding by God's hand, must part from thine. 

56 



THE ROUGH SKETCH 

S. G. H. 

A GREAT grieved heart, an iron will, 
As fearless blood as ever ran ; 
A form elate with nervous strength 
And fibrous vigor, — all a man. 

A gallant rein, a restless spur, 
The hand to wield a biting scourge j 
Small patience for the tasks of time. 
Unmeasured power to speed and urge. 

He rides the errand of the hour. 
But sends no herald on his ways ; 
The world would thank the service done, 
He cannot stay for gold or praise. 

Not lavishly he casts abroad 
The glances of an eye intense, 
And, did he smile but once a year, 
It were a Christmas recompense. 

I thank a poet for his name. 
The " Down of Darkness " this should be 
57 



58 THE ROUGH SKETCH 

A child, who knows no risk it runs, 
Might stroke its roughness harmlessly. 

One helpful gift the gods forgot, 
Due to the man of lion mood ; 
A woman's soul to match with his 
In high resolve and hardihood. 



BALAKLAVA 

They gave the fatal order, Charge ! 
And so, the Light Brigade went down 
Where bristling brows of cannon crown 
The front of either marge. 

Traced all in fire we saw our way, 
And the black goal of death beyond — 
It was no moment to despond. 
To question or to pray. 

Firm in the saddle, stout of heart. 
With plume and sabre waving high. 
With gathering stride and onward cry, 
The band was swift to start. 

They took the field with solemn eye, 
However wild the deed they knew, 
However whoso bade, should rue, 
Their business was, to die. 

'T was the old gallant English blood, 
And many a shadowy ancestor. 
Guarding his sculptured arms afar. 
That day in memory stood. 
59 



6o BALAKLAVA 

At serried gallop on they press, 
Swerveless as penciled lines of light, 
And where a steed turns back in fright. 
That steed is riderless. 

They charged in high, immortal ire ! 
The war-cloud swallowed them, the young, 
The brave, — a handful widely flung, 
But of heroic fire. 

They fell, unconquered, nor in vain. 

No, by the sacrificial cost 

Of faith and courage, never lost. 

Theirs doth the day remain. 

Reft heart of love, contain thy wound ! 
Flash, eyes ! though lips press close and pale ! 
Still, mourners ! let us hear no wail 
Above the trumpet's sound. 

Nor wait the sire to weep the son 
That bore his fortune and his pride. 
Nor shall the mother's wish divide 

From these, her cherished one. 

But tearful England holds her breath, 
Listening, uncomforted, their fame, 
Who, in the greatness of her name. 
Rode glorious unto death. 



PIO NONO 

Thou shouldst have had more faith ! thy hand did 

shed 
The seed of freedom in the field of God. 
But the last peril drove thee from thy bounds, 
And stranger feet the unripe harvest trod. 

Thou shouldst have had more faith ! thy crown 

was hung, 
High-pitched, upon a sharp and thorny tree ; 
We saw thee wrestle bravely with the boughs. 
But the last buffet did dishearten thee. 

Thou shouldst have had more faith ! the voice of 

Christ 
Called thee to meet him, walking on the wave ; 
Thou shouldst have trod the waters as a path. 
Such power divine thy holy mission gave. 

Shoreward thy recreant footsteps turn, and sink : 
In vain the heavenly voice, the outstretched arm. 
Thou heed' St not, though a God doth beckon thee. 
Binding the billows with a golden charm. 

6i 



62 PIO NONO 

Where glory should have crowned thee, failure 

whelms, 
Truth judges thee, that should have made thee 

great ; 
Thine is the doom of souls that cannot bring 
Their highest courage to their highest fate. 



BEHIND THE VEIL 

The secret of man's life disclosed 
Would cause him strange confusion, 

Should God the cloud of fear remove, 
Or veil of sweet illusion. 

No maiden sees aright the faults 

Or merits of her lover ; 
No sick man guesses if 't were best 

To die or to recover. 

The miser dreams not that his wealth 

Is dead as soon as buried ; 
Nor knows the bard who sings away 

Life's treasures, real and varied. 

The tree-root lies too deep for sight, 
The well-source for our plummet. 

And heavenward fount and palm defy 
Our scanning of their summit. 

Whether a present grief ye weep, 

Or yet untasted blisses, 
Look for the balm that comes with tears, 

The bane that lurks in kisses. 

63 



64 BEHIND THE VEIL 

We may reap dear delight from wrongs, 
Regret from things most pleasant ; 

Foes may confess us when we 're gone, 
And friends deny us present. 

And that high suffering which we dread 

A higher joy discloses ; 
Men saw the thorns on Jesu's brow, 

But angels saw the roses. 



PRIVATION 

Of all the workings of the Law Divine, 
Privation is most wearily outworn ; 
Harder than wounds that bleed, or pangs that tear, 
'T is Life's high treason — generous Hope for- 
sworn. 

In want is woe and sad vacuity, 
'T is Aspiration doubting of its crown ; 
Yet who that ever panted in th' ascent 
Would sit to rest, or turn to cast him down ? 

To him who presses on, at each degree 
New visions rise, beyond the dim unseen ; 
Soon happier love, soon nearer hope shall come. 
And only this slow suffering lies between. 

Some men have wrung strange glory from the cloud 
That was a prison to their loneliness ; 
And, feeding other hearts with rare delight, 
Kept for themselves their hunger and distress. 

The blind majestic bard, whose tearless eyes 
Were patient in the weariness of night ; 
65 



66 PRIVATION 

And one, his brother in a kindred art, 
Bereft of melody, as he of light ; 

Fruition was not for them to the sense — 
The world for one, for one the swelling tone ; 
" We work — " they said, and in high toil abode, 
And "we have wrought ! " they uttered, and passed 
on. 

My Milton ! thou whose holy heart forbore 
The doubtful rite of uncongenial shrines. 
But gave the perfect tribute of its faith. 
Before thee now the true Shekinah shines. 

Seeking a nearer moral for my song, 
I find two poets of the latter days. 
Branded by Nature with the fatal gift. 
Pilgrims from birth, but in divergent ways. 

This rode his blood's high mettle to the full. 
Goading satiety with unblest wine ; 
This to a meeker measure moved along, 
Palm-heralded, as Christ in Palestine. 

This, like a meteor, streamed abroad in air, — 
This, like a star, abode in distant light ; 
The one scared noonday with his crimson glare. 
The other was the beacon-guide of night. 



PRIVATION 6^ 

The one with lordly gesture trod the earth, 
Gathering all pleasure, innocent or ill ; 
The other bared his reverend brow to heav'n, 
And gleaned from Nature with a sober will. 

The one awoke the echoes of the Past, 
Those sacred voices of the marble halls, 
And bade them bear a demon-strophe wild 
To mock, afar, his gray ancestral walls. 

The other was penurious of his days 

In those fair hills, beneath that friendly heaven ; 

His were the deep, synthetic harmonies. 

The joy of task and recompense God-given. 

One in a wild convulsion ceased to be. 
And if he went to bane or bliss, none knew ; 
The other, stood, serenely crowned with age, 
And steadfast passed to God, if God be true. 

Oh ! at the Muse-crowned temple of the one, 
And at the other's lonely sepulchre. 
Pause thou, my soul, and ponder deeply thence 
The paths of Fate, and choosing, dare not err ! 

Hast thou the high, heroic heart to walk. 
Or wait, receptive of the distant tone ! 
Or wouldst thou sit to revel, and crush out 
Lifeblood of others, mingled with thine own ? 



68 PRIVATION 

Wilt thou rest guardian of these simpler loves, 
Leading the dull, the passionless, the weak ? 
Or, desperate, rush to Lido's charmed shore, 
To fling wild kisses on a hireling's cheek ? 

Oh ! treasured in the hand that cannot fail 
Let thy poor life through want and waiting lie, 
Radiant in anguish, comforted of tears, 
If the deep voice but whisper : It is I. 



PARABLES 

I 

" I SENT a child of mine to-day; 

I hope you used him well." 
" Now, Lord, no visitor of yours 

Has waited at my bell. 

" The children of the Millionaire 
Run up and down our street ; 
I glory in their well-combed hair, 
Their dress and trim complete. 

*' But yours would in a chariot come 
With thoroughbreds so gay ; 
And little merry maids and men 
To cheer him on his way." 

" Stood, then, no child before your door ? 

The Lord, persistent, said. 
" Only a ragged beggar-boy, 

With rough and frowzy head. 

" The dirt was crusted on his skin, 
His muddy feet were bare ; 
69 



70 PARABLES 

The cook gave victuals from within ; 
I cursed his coming there." 

What sorrow, silvered with a smile, 
Slides o'er the face divine ? 

What tenderest whisper thrills rebuke ? 
" The beggar-boy was mine ! " 



II 

Once, where men of high pretension 

For the Lord did wait. 
Suffer did their pride declension ; 

Angry grew their state. 

One, impatient, snaps his fingers ; 

One torments his hair ; 
One, albeit no pride of singers, 

Hums a broken air. 

Sitting low apart, a modest 

Maiden waited too ; 
Little weary one, thou ploddest 

111 thy week's work through ! 

Comes the Lord. From long abiding 

They uprise in haste ; 
With their greeting mingles chiding 

For the time they waste. 



PARABLES 71 

" Lord, I am a merchant wealthy ; 
Commerce holds me dear ; 
Competition enters stealthy 
While I tarry here." 

" Lord, for me recondite dinners 
Chill on festive boards ; 
Waste the games, and haste the winners, 
While I wait thy words." 

To this folly of upbraiding 

Says the Master, " Yes : 
You have waited too, my maiden ; 

Seek you not redress ? " 

" Waiting is such holy pleasure 
For a joy most dear ; 
I had rapture out of measure, 
Knowing thou wert near." 



Ill 

Beside this goodly mansion's gate 
I '11 pause, and rest awhile : 

Its master will not have me wait ; 
He beckons with a smile. 
" Now, friend, what might your errand be ? 
Will you walk in for charity ? " 



72 PARABLES 

Thus I returned him : " Could you know 
The treasures in my pack, 

And all the bravery and show 
I carry at my back, 

The merchant's pains you should requite, 

Not shame him with the beggar's mite." 

'* If it content you, open out 

The goods you praise so well." 
" I Ve turned the rolling earth about 
For that which here I sell ; 
No trumpery for the servants' hall : 
I only heed the master's call. 

" Behold these painful broideries rare, 

The costliest Fashion knows ; 

Such as the chief Sultanas wear, 

Steeped with the attar rose." 

" Your shawl is faded, patched, and poor : 

It pleases not ; show something more." 

" This crystal phial, art-embossed, 
A balsam doth contain 
For whose delight an empire's cost 
Were scarcely spent in vain." 
" It cannot match one clover-bloom : 
Bring other business, — pass perfume." 

" Behold this weighty carcanet, 
Whose links of sullen gold 



PARABLES 73 

Would seem to bind the Favorite yet 
In Love's triumphant hold." 
" The iron rusts through these gilded chains, 
As smiles discover torture-pains." 

" Last, then, this diamond, with a light 
Kindled 'neath tropic skies : 
A slave toiled twenty years of night. 
Bleeding, to win this prize." 
" One impulse of the blood you name 
Would put your Kohinoor to shame." 

" Shall your encounter make me poor, 

And desolate of bread ? 
If all my wealth beside your door 

Buys not a pilgrim's bed. 
At the next inn I '11 set me down, 
And travel to the market-town." 

" Friend ! " said the Master, " coming here, 
You passed an unseen bound ; 
And in the outer region drear 

No hostelry is found. 
I question all who pass this way, 
And grant them leave to go or stay. 

" But in my mansion, too, is wealth 
Of garments glad and white : 
My chains are helpful bonds of health ; 
My jewels, heart's delight ; 



74 PARABLES 

My perfumes waste no joy divine : 
Enter ; for all I have is thine." 



IV 

" Lord of life, why must thou seek me 
In this desert wild ? 
Why so tenderly bespeak me, 
Fallen and sin-defiled ? 

" Should thy feet, so fair and glorious, 
That in heaven's ways go, 
Tread the stony paths laborious 
That the wicked know ? 

" In abysses darkly yawning, 
Where the lost are pent, 
Shouldst thou spread the purple awning 
Of thy sheltering tent ? 

" See ! the hell-flames gather round thee, 
Raging for thy life : 
Tongues of thief and ribald wound thee 
Worse than spear or knife. 

" Oh ! of all my deeds abhorred 
Is not this the worst, 
Fronting thine anointed forehead 



With this woe accurst ? 



? " 



PARABLES 75 

" Angels, bear him without rudeness 
To the breath of morn, 
Veihng with your crowns the voidness 
Where his brow is shorn. 

" Use no whisper of the evil 
That his hand hath done, 
Lest a saint become a devil 
Torturing such an one. 

" And that wound, whose deadly feeling 
Makes the bosom faint, 
Reconcile with swift annealing. 
Purge from mortal taint. 

" Call a feast of stately measure 
With a solemn joy, 
With all courtesy and pleasure 
To him sitting by. 

*' Gather up his long-lost kindred, 
Angered and estranged ; 
For each good gift bring an hundred, 
Since his heart is changed. 

" Bind the robe upon his shoulder, 
On his hand the ring j 
Since, while Love is treasure-holder, 
Sorrow must be king." 



THE UNWELCOME MESSAGE 

A DISMAL Postman passes by, -— 

I fear his sullen knock : 
'T will strike a shiver through the door, 

And paralyze the lock. 

" Plague not this unoffending house ; 

It owes no shameful debt ; 

Nor guilty chamber doth it hide 

Where evil guests are met. 

" Here gentle heart and gentle blood 
Their life-surroundings bless ; 
And days glide by with happy toil, 
And measured thankfulness. 

" The messengers who enter here 
Are glad and bright of eye, 
Freighted with precious words that stir 
Responsive minstrelsy." 

" The note is brief, the seal is sharp, 
The characters are pale : 

76 



THE UNWELCOME MESSAGE ^^ 

I cannot err in their address 3 
My letters never fail. 

If you the door will not unbar, 

The window answers well, 
Less lofty than the turret where 

I touch the passing bell. 

When you have read, the feast may speed, 

The business, as you list : 
But, somehow, where my foot has stept, 

The joy of joys is missed ; 

And on the heart of working week 

A Sabbath falls of rest, 
Unwished ; yet He who sends me here 

Declares his errand blest." 



TO THE CRITIC 

Of all my verses, say that one is good, 

So shalt thou give more praise than Hope might 

claim ; 
And from my poet-grave, to vex thy soul. 
No ghost shall rise, whose deeds demand a name. 

A thousand loves, and only one shall stand 
To show us what its counterfeits should be ; 
The blossoms of a spring-tide, and but one 
Bears the world's fruit, — the seed of History. 

A thousand rhymes shall pass, and only one 
Show, crystal-shod, the Muse's twinkling feet ; 
A thousand pearls the haughty Ethiop spurned 
Ere one could make her luxury complete. 

In goodliest palaces, some meanest room 
The owner's smallness shields contentedly. 
Nay, further : of the manifold we are. 
But one pin's point shall pass eternity. 

Exalt, then, to the greatness of the throne 
One only of these beggarlings of mine ; 
I with the rest will dwell in modest bounds : 
The chosen one shall glorify the line. 
78 



PHILOSOPHY 

Naked and poor thou goest, Philosophy ! 
Thy robe of serge hath lain beneath the stars ; 
Thy weight of tresses, ponderously free, 
Of iron hue, no golden circlet bars. 

Thy pale page. Study, by thy side doth hold. 
As by Cyprigna's her persuasive boy : 
Twin sacks thou bear'st ; one doth the gifts in- 
fold, 
In which thou tenderest immortal joy. 

The other at thy patient back doth hang 
To keep the boons thou 'rt wonted to receive : 
Reproof therein doth hide her venomed fang, 
And hard barbaric arts, that mock and grieve. 

Here is a stab, and here a mortal thrust ; 
Here galley service brought the age to loss ; 
Here lies thy virgin forehead rolled in dust 
Beside the martyr stake or hero cross. 

They who besmirched thy whiteness with their 

pitch. 
Thy gallery of glories did complete ; 

79 



8o PHILOSOPHY 

They who accepted of thee so grew rich, 

Men could not count their treasures in the street. 

Thy hollow cheek, and eye of distant light. 
Won from the chief of men their noblest love ; 
Olympian feasts thy temperance requite, 
And thy worn weeds a priceless dowry prove. 

I know not if I Ve caught the matchless mood 
In which impassioned Petrarch sang of thee ; 
But this I know, — the world its plenitude 
May keep, so I may share thy beggary. 



AMANDA'S INVENTORY 

This is my hat : behold its upstart plume, 
Soaring like pride, that even in heaven asks room ! 
This is my cloak of scarlet splendor rare, 
A saucy challenge to the sunset glare. 

Behold my coach of state and pony chaise, 
A fairy pleasure for the summer days j 
The steeds that fly, like lightnings in a leash, 
With their rude Jove, subservient to my wish. 

Here are my jewels : each a fortune holds ; 
A starving artist planned the graceful moulds : 
Here hang my dresses in composed array, 
A rainbow with a hue for every day. 

These are my lovers, registered in date. 
Who, with my dowr}?-, seek myself to mate. 
The haughtiest wooer wins me for his bride : 
Who asks affection ? Pride should wed with pride. 

These are my friends, who hourly come or send. 
Pleased with my notice and a finger-end ; 



82 AMANDA'S INVENTORY 

Yonder 's my parson, proud to share my feast ; 
My doctor 's there, a sycophantic beast. 

This is my villa, where I take my ease 
With flowers well-ordered, and ambitious trees ; 
And this — what sudden spectre stays my breath ? 
Amanda, poor Amanda ! this is death. 



THE CHRIST 

No idle superstition made him ; 
Nor canst thou, Critic, him unmake ; 
No sect upreared his holy stature, 
Beloved for its divineness' sake. 

Wipe rudely out the glowing picture ; 
Leave but thy blank for man to read ; 
Write nothingness where'er it please thee ; 
Take, as I fling them, creed for creed : 

What hast thou then ? thine own dominion, 
The empire that thy nature craves ; 
Crown thee a tyrant of opinion. 
With disbelievers for thy slaves. 

He grew not great by priestly cunning, 
Nor magic gifts, nor Eastern arts : 
Immortal love sprang up to honor 
The fair ideal of our hearts. 

As from some dreamer's inspiration 
Each noble school of Science grew, 

^3 



84 THE CHRIST 

And rules that help the striving many 
Were moulded from the gifted few , 

So, from his life and thoughts transcendent, 
Flashed light that ages cannot dim : 
Blind Faith and Feeling were before him ; 
Religion followed after him. 



THE CHURCH 

I HEARD one say in sunny travel, 
A braggart Frenchman, rude and vain, 
He and his mates would mine St. Peter's, 
And blast it with a powder-train. 

I saw in thought the mighty ruin, 

The wealth of Art and Record gone ; 

The unfading pictures wrenched and shattered ; 

The arches, music-knit, o'erthrown. 

I thought how piteous Contadini 
Would miss that genial mother-hearth ; 
How, from the falling water-vases. 
The marble doves would flutter forth. 

Then, from the ghastly vision turning, 

Mine eye the silly Celt did reach : 

I said, and every heart responded, 

" Now, never more with me hold speech." 

So thou, whose ill-conditioned learning 
Would shake the aisles where Faith abides ; 
8s 



86 THE CHURCH 

Where, from the vulgar world out-driven, 
Devotion, crowned of ages, hides, — 

Wield cautiously the crushing mallet : 
Not Peter's door alone you break ; 
But, of the temple of our sires, 
A weltering heap of dust you make. 

These aisles were built with holy living, 
These stones were piled with thought and prayer 
The world before us gave the pattern, 
The world that follows is the heir ; 

And hearts are set, like gems incrusted. 
In the fair walls ; and, ruby-red. 
The blood of martyrdom doth stain them. 
And tears more terrible to shed. 

So, build thy dome in airy heaven 
A shelter for new hope and joy. 
And write thereon the Master-sentence, 
" Come to deliver, not destroy." 



THE CRUCIFIX 

In desolations of my own 
I see a figure lifted lone, 
Stript, and extended felon-wise, 
That yields not to the solvent skies. 

Mother and friends are stolen away ; 
Fails, too, the cordial light of day ; 
And Darkness, and the deep Divine, 
Their counsels mystical intwine. 

The greatest distance cannot hide, 
Nor Time, more potent to divide : 
Touch but the golden bond of prayer. 
He and his agony are there. 

The Angel, with the nod of Fate, 
Unsmiling and compassionate, 
From Life's rude banquet beckoneth 
To front us with that crowned death. 

So silent, yet he stirs our veins 
To madden for heroic pains ; 

87 



THE CRUCIFIX 

So passive, turning human-kind, 
Leagued with omnipotence of mind. 

Uplifting all our weight of woe, 
Bringing the vaulted heavens low. 
Remembered as the immortal One 
Who was, and willed to be, God's Son. 



THE PRICE OF THE DIVINA 
COMMEDIA 

Give, — you need not see the face, 
But the garment hangeth bare ; 
And the hand is gaunt and spare 
That enforces Christian grace. 

Many ages will not bring 
Such a point as this to sight, 
That the world should so requite 
Master heart and matchless string. 

Wonder at the well-born feet 
Fretting in the flinty road. 
Hath this virtue no abode ? 
Hath this sorrow no retreat ? 

See, beneath the hood of grief. 
Muffled bays engird the brow. 
Fame shall yield her topmost bough 
Ere that laurel moult a leaf. 

Give : it is no idle hand 
That extends an asking palm, 



90 PRICE OF THE DIVINA COMMEDIA 

Tracing yet the loftiest psalm 
By the heart of Nature spanned. 

In the antechamber long 
Did he patient hearing crave : 
Smiles and splendors crown the slave, 
While the patriot suffers wrong. 

Could the mighty audience deign, 
Meeting once the inspired gaze, 
They should ransom all their days 
With the beauty of his strain. 

With a spasm in his breast, 
With a consummate love alone. 
All his human blessings gone. 
Doth he wander, void of rest. 

Not a coin within his purse, 
Not a crust to help his way. 
Making yet a Judgment Day 
With his power to bless and curse. 

Give ; but ask what he has given : 
That Posterity shall tell, — 
All the majesty of Hell ; 
Half the ecstasy of Heaven. 



A NEW SCULPTOR 

Once to my Fancy's hall a stranger came, 

Of mien unwonted ; 
And its pale shapes of glory without shame 

Or speech confronted. 

Fair was my hall, — a gallery of gods 

Smoothly appointed, 
With nymphs and satyrs from the dewy sods 

Freshly anointed. 

Great Jove sat throned in state, with Hermes near, 

And fiery Bacchus, 
Pallas and Pluto, and those Powers of fear 

Whose visions rack us. 

Artemis wore her crescent free of stars, 

The hunt just scented ; 
Glad Aphrodite met the warrior Mars, 

The myriad-tented. 

Rude was my visitant, of sturdy form, 
Draped in such clothing 
91 



92 A NEW SCULPTOR 

As the world's great, whom luxury makes warm, 
Look on with loathing. 

And yet methought his service-badge of soil 

With honor wearing, 
And in his dexter hand, embossed with toil, 

A hammer bearing. 

But while I waited till his eye should sink, 

O'ercome with beauty. 
With heart-impatience brimming to the brink 

Of courteous duty. 

He smote my marbles many a murderous blow, 

His weapon poising ; 
I, in my wrath and wonderment of woe, 

No comment voicing. 

" Come, sweep this rubbish from the workman's 
way. 

Wreck of past ages ! 
Afford me here a lump of harmless clay. 

Ye grooms and pages ! " 

Then from that voidness of our mother-earth 

A frame he builded, 
Of a new feature, with the power of birth 

Fashioned and welded. 



A NEW SCULPTOR 93 

It had a might mine eyes had never seen, — 

A mien, a stature, 
As if the centuries that rolled between 

Had greatened Nature. 

It breathed, it moved ; above Jove's classic sway 

A place was won it : 
The rustic sculptor motioned ; then " To-day " 

He wrote upon it. 

" What man art thou ? " I cried, " and what this 
wrong 

That thou hast wrought me ? 
My marbles lived on symmetry and song : 

Why hast thou brought me 

A form of all necessities, that asks 

Nurture and feeding? 
Not this the burthen of my maidhood's tasks, 

Nor my high breeding." 

" Behold," he said, " Life's great impersonate, 

Nourished by labor ! 
Thy gods are gone with old-time faith and fate ; 

Here is thy Neighbor." . 



THE GOOD GUALDERALDA 

By Arno, on the Tuscan side, 
The matchless Gualderalda grew, 
Where many a farm and meadow wide 
Her father's domination knew. 

He moved in dark and sullen strength ; 
She grew, a lovely flower apart. 
With virtues cloistered in her soul, 
Like leaflets at the lily's heart. 

And now great news the castle stirs : 
The King, in hunting, takes this way. 
And of your hospitable walls 
Will ask his welcome for a day. 

" Sir Count, the world accords your house 
A daughter marvellously fair : 
If I accept your loyal vows, 
To see her face shall be my prayer." 

Then from her turret near the sky 
Came she in blushing maidenhood ; 

94 



THE GOOD GUALDERALDA 95 

Then first unveiled before the eye 
Of eager admiration stood. 

" Sire, you shall touch my daughter's lips 
If so your royal pleasure deign ; " 
Then paled, in wan and strange eclipse, 
Her beauty, with a sudden pain. 

" No man shall touch my lips," she saith, 
" Save he who claims my wedded hand : 
Rather will I resign my breath. 
And yield my pulses where I stand." 

" How ? dost thou mock me, froward girl ? " 
" Nay, count," the wiser king replies, 
" Thou wert a worse than peasant churl 
Such unflecked virtue to despise. 

" Go, Gualderalda, fair indeed ! 
I '11 wed thee proudly in the land : 
The noblest knight that crosses steed 
Shall claim thy dowry at my hand." 

Men note not where her bones repose 
In some old crypt, forgotten long ; 
But Dante keeps her virgin rose 
Bright in the chaplet of his song. 



THE TEA-PARTY 

I AM not with you, sisters, in your talk ; 
I sit not in your fancied judgment-seat : 
Not thus the sages in their council walk, 
Not in this wise the calm great spirits meet. 

My life has striven for broader scope than yours ; 
The daring of its failure and its fact 
Have taught how deadly difficult it is 
To suit the high endeavor with the act. 

I do not reel my satire by the yard, 
To flout the fronts of honorable men ; 
Nor, with poor cunning, underprize the heart 
Whose impulse is not open to my ken. 

Ah ? sisters, but your forward speech comes well 
To help the woman's standard, new-unfurled : 
In carpet council ye may win the day ; 
But keep your limits, — do not rule the world. 

What strife should come, what discord rule the 

times. 
Could but your pettish will assert its way ! 
96 



THE TEA-PARTY 97 

No lengthened wars of reason, but a rage, 
Shown and repented twenty times a day. 

Ye 're all my betters, — one in beauty more, 
And one in sharpness of the wit and tongue. 
And one in trim, decorous piety. 
And one with arts and graces ever young. 

But well I thank my father's sober house 
Where shallow judgment had no leave to be. 
And hurrying years, that, stripping much beside, 
Turned as they fled, and left me charity. 



WARNING 

Power, reft of aspiration ; 
Passion, lacking inspiration ; 
Leisure, not of contemplation. 

Thus shall danger overcome thee, 
Fretted luxury consume thee, 
All divineness vanish from thee. 

Be a man, and be one wholly ; 
Keep one great love, purely, solely, 
Till it make thy nature holy ; 

That thy way be paved in whiteness, 
That thy heart may beat in lightness. 
That thy being end in brightness. 
98 



A VISION OF PALM SUNDAY 

If I were a titled princess, this blessed Palm-Sun- 
day morn, 

I 'd not sit in this little carriage, with varnish and 
paint forlorn ; 

Nor wear this old cloak and bonnet, kept carefully 
for the day : 

There should be no best in my wardrobe ; I 'd go 
in best things alway. 

And this Yankee should never drive me, this saucy 

son of the whip, 
Who sits in a cart on week-days, a leather belt on 

his hip j 
Nor this small horse of smaller breeding, that starts 

at each foolish fright : 
I 'd borrow the Sun's proud coursers, and sweep 

through the streets like light. 

This dust should not trouble my vision, nor smart 

in my tingling breast ; 
With dewy drops rosy scattered, the air itself should 

be blest ; 

99 



loo A VISION OF PALM SUNDAY 

And these people that stare so wanly from their 

windows empty of sky 
Should glow like a sun-touched landscape with the 

joy of my riding by. 

For you see, I myself should bless them ; no com- 
mittee should scan their need : 

I 'd visit their doleful dwellings, my help should be 
help indeed ; 

I 'd bring them to true heart-wishes, not only to 
clothes and bread ; 

I 'd pull down these toppling houses, and build 
pretty cots instead. 

And this were my April fooling, when they came 

from this morning's church, — 
In vain for their rags and cobwebs, and joyless 

beds, should they search : 
All waving with snowy curtains their newly stained 

walls should be ; 
And their scores paid up at all dealers, such help 

should they claim from me. 

And these little ones bare and ragged, that play 

with the Sunday's palms, 
They should answer with wide-mouthed wonder, 

I 'd give them such golden alms ; 
And these crying babies some angel should touch 

with a waving bough, 



A VISION OF PALM SUNDAY loi 

Till they smiled on their mothers' bosoms, where 
they hang so heavily now. 

But not such poor cheap-bought comforts, not 

blessings that come for pelf, — 
The dearest and costliest blessing, I 'd carry it in 

myself. 
My smile should be meed for heroes, my lips draw 

such tender breath 
That a little strain of my music should comfort the 

pangs of death. 

Such a heart I 'd bear in my bosom, that, threading 

the crowded streets, 
My face should shed joy unlooked for on every 

poor soul one meets ; 
And such wisdom should crown my forehead, that, 

coming where counsels stand, 
I should carry the thoughts of justice, and 'stablish 

the weal of the land. 

The servants that waited on me should so prize the 
gracious task, 

No wage-gold should bring or bind them, my pre- 
sence were all to ask ; 

And they who should leave my service, with sor- 
rowful feet and slow 

Out-lengthening a dear remembrance, from my 
sight and sound should go. 



102 A VISION OF PALM SUNDAY 

For a church I 'd have such a temple as wonders 

the world in Rome, 
With a thousand sunny corners where angels might 

make their home : 
I 'd not have the prayers in Latin, and the doctrine 

far out of reach, 
But the homely to help the humble, like the Fisher 

of old should preach. 

For myself I would keep no gewgaws, no trumpery 

cloth of gold, 
No stick of a Stick in Waiting for gaping fools to 

behold : 
Friends should gather where'er I wandered, hearts 

should build me a blood-red throne ; 
'T is with loving the world and with blessing I 'd 

win it to be my own. 

Yet I 'd keep the rich guerdon of beauty, and youth 
should but mellow down 

To a fuller, maturer feeling, that knowledge and 
duties crown ; 

And the tireless flow of spirits, with the sober de- 
light of art, 

And some subtle, saintly secret, to hold from the 
world apart. 

If thy wealth be loving and giving, the good God is 
over all 



A VISION OF PALM SUNDAY 103 

To bless the world with thy blessing, — no prayer 

doth unheeded fall. 
Gather back thy joys in thy bosom this blessed 

Palm-Sunday morn, 
For we have the grace that we ask for ; thou 'rt 

better than princess born. 



BABY'S SHOES 

"And it came to pass, that as we ascended the stair, at bedtime, we 
encountered the baby's shoes, which the mother kissed, and put in her 
bosom." 

Little feet, pretty feet, 

Feet of fairy Maud, 
Fair and fleet, trim and neat, 

Carry her abroad ! 

Be as wings, tiny things, 

To my butterfly : 
In the flowers, hours on hours, 

Let my darling lie. 

Shine ye must, in the dust, 

Twinkle as she runs. 
Threading a necklace gay 

Through the summer suns. 

Stringing days, borrowing phrase, 

Weaving wondrous plots, 
With her eyes blue and wise 

As forget-me-nots. 
104 



BABY'S SHOES 105 

Like a charm which doth arm 

Some poor mother's pain 
For the child dream-beguiled 

She shall know again, 

By the pet amulet 

Kept through lonely years ; 
Little shoe, I and you 

Would not part for tears. 

Cinderel grown a belle, 

Coming from her ball, 
Frightened much, let just such 

A tiny slipper fall. 

If men knew as I do 

Half thy sweets, my own, 
They 'd not delay another day, — 

I should be alone. 

Come and go, friend and foe, 

Fairy Prince most fine ! 
Take your gear otherwhere ; 

Maud is only mine. 



« SERVANT TO A WOODEN CRADLE " 

Come, visit the flowers, thy cousins, 
God's dear little lamb, and mine ! 
See where, lit by one flaming crystal, 
The gems of the greenhouse shine ! 
The leaves of this rose thou shalt scatter 
With the strength of thine infant will : 
Thou hast ravished the form of the flower, 
See ! the heart keeps its sweetness still. 

The flowers have a dark, sad mother, 
Whose bosom is bare to view ; 
So they haste, in their springtide beauty, 
To clothe her worn heart anew. 
They perish ; but she endureth, 
To faint in the Winter's scorn, 
With a life-warmth buried within her 
Through which other Springs are born. 

As the shadows dance hither and thither. 
The gleams of thy consciousness pass. 
As a lamp wakes its fitful glimmer 
In the heart of a sleeping glass. 

1 06 



SERVANT TO A WOODEN CRADLE 107 

The shrouded ghost of the future 
Stands near, while I hold thee fast ; 
And the traits of my race turn slowly 
My thoughts to the long-linked past. 

O Future ! what sorrows gather 
In the folds of thy hanging veil ? 
O Past, shalt thou flower further 
In passions comprest and pale ? 
O thou who art past and future, 
Thou Present of life and soul ! 
We lift our sad eyes to thy features, 
Our thoughts to thy great control. 

Thy manhood lies crouching within thee. 
For the leap of its coming years ; 
Thy heart takes its long vibration 
From the mother's fountain of tears ; 
The helpful things and the hurtful 
Weave round thee their waiting spell : 
Oh ! look to the God that commands them, 
And all shall be suffered well. 



A WINTER THOUGHT 

The flower of my love is sleeping, 
Locked in his icy funeral mound : 
The Frost, stern sentinel, is keeping 
Earth's tranced blossoms under ground. 

The Spring shall bring the sweet appearing 
Of buds, her radiant breath shall free ; 
But my heart blossom, most endearing, 
Shall rest, a flower of Memory. 

A sterner sentinel is waiting 
Our ban of severance to remove : 
Death must resolve our separation. 
Chill Herald of the Spring of Love. 
1 08 



SPRING-BLOSSOMS 

The little daisies, two by two, 
The lilies wet with frosted dew, 
The sweet procession of the Spring 
Carries my baby's offering, 

I leave the thoughts that take his place, 
Imaginations winged in space. 
And fold his shadow to my breast. 
With the dear lips that mine have prest. 

Ever my introverted eyes 

Recover that past paradise ; 

Not without hell pain shuddered through 

Where life declined, to rise anew. 

Oh ! to my darling carry this, 

The old-time phrase, the frequent kiss ; 

Remind him how, in his decay, 

My life's enamel melts away. 

Tell him my time must also come 
To enter his restricted home. 
Where my soul furniture shall be 
His lovely immortality. 
109 



REMEMBRANCE 

There was a time when thy dear face to me 
Was but a dream, with nameless pangs between. 
Three happy years upheld the fatal screen 
Whose fall left blank and bitterness for thee. 

As one who at a gracious drama sits, 

And builds long vistas in its magic ways, 

" For this must come, and this ; " and while he stays 

The end consigns him to the silent streets : 

So did I stand when thy sweet play was done, 
Wondering what spell the curtain still should hide, 
Waiting and weeping, till my saintly guide 
Took by the hand, and pitying said, " Pass on." 

So thou art hid again, and wilt not come 
For any knocking at the veiled door ; 
Nor mother-pangs, nor nature, can restore 
The heart's delight and blossom of thy home. 

And I with others, in the outer court, 

Must sadly follow the excluding will. 

In painful admiration of the. skill 

Of God, who speaks his sweetest sentence short. 



HAMLET AT THE BOSTON 

We sit before the row of evening lamps, 

Each in his chair, 
Forgetful of November dews and damps 

And wintry air. 

A little gulf of music intervenes, 

A bridge of sighs. 
Where still the cunning of the curtain screens 

Art's paradise. 

My thought transcends these viols' shrill delight, 

The booming bass, 
And, towards the regions we shall view to-night, 

Makes hurried pace. 

The painted castle, and the unneeded guard 

That ready stand ; 
The harmless Ghost, that walks with helm unbarred 

And beckoning hand. 

And beautiful as dreams of maidenhood, 

That doubt defy. 
Young Hamlet, with his forehead grief-subdued, 

And visioning eye. 



112 HAMLET AT THE BOSTON 

O fair dead world, that from thy grave awak'st 

A little while, 
And in our heart strange revolution mak'st 

With thy brief smile ! 

O beauties vanished, fair lips magical. 

Heroic braves ! 
O mighty hearts, that held the world in thrall ! 

Come from your graves ! 

The poet sees you through a mist of tears, — 

Such depths divide 
Him, with the love and passion of his years, 

From you, inside ! 

The poet's heart attends your buskined feet, 

Your lofty strains. 
Till earth's rude touch dissolves that madness 
sweet. 

And life remains : 

Life that is something while the senses heed 

The spirit's call ; 
Life that is nothing when our grosser need 

Ingulfs it all. 

And thou, young hero of this mimic scene, 

In whose high breast 
A genius greater than thy life hath been 

Strangely comprest ! — 



HAMLET AT THE BOSTON 113 

Wear'st thou those glories draped about thy soul 

Thou dost present ? 
And art thou by their feeling and control 

Thus eloquent ? 

'T is with no feigned power thou bind'st our sense, 

No shallow art ; 
Sure, lavish Nature gave thee heritance 

Of Hamlet's heart ! 

Thou dost control our fancies with a might 

So wild, so fond, 
We quarrel, passed thy circle of delight, 

With things beyond ; 

Returning to the pillows rough with care, 

And vulgar food. 
Sad from the breath of that diviner air, 

That loftier mood. 

And there we leave thee, in thy misty tent 

Watching alone ; 
While foes about thee gather imminent. 

To us scarce known. 

Oh, when the lights are quenched, the music hushed, 

The plaudits still, 
Heaven keep the fountain, whence the fair stream 
gushed, 

From choking ill ! 



114 HAMLET AT THE BOSTON 

Let Shakespeare's soul, that wins the world from 
wrong, 

For thee avail, 
And not one holy maxim of his song 

Before thee fail ! 

So get thee to thy couch as unreproved 

As heroes blest ; 
And all good angels, trusted in and loved, 

Attend thy rest ! 



IN MY VALLEY 

From the hurried city fleeing, 
From the dusty men and ways, 
In my golden sheltered valley. 
Count I yet some sunny days. 

Golden, for the ripened Autumn 
Kindles there its yellow blaze ; 
And the fiery sunshine haunts it 
Like a ghost of summer days. 

Walking where the running water 
Twines its silvery caprice, 
Treading soft the leaf-spread carpet, 
I encounter thoughts like these : — 

" Keep but heart, and healthful courage, 
Keep the ship against the sea, 
Thou shalt pass the dangerous quicksands 
That insnare Futurity ; 

"Thou shalt live for song and story. 
For the service of the pen ; 
Shalt survive till children's children 
Bring thee mother-joys again. 



Il6 IN MY VALLEY 

" Thou hast many years to gather ; 
And these falling years shall bring 
The benignant fruits of Autumn, 
Answering to the hopes of Spring. 

" Passing where the shades that darkened 
Grow transfigured to thy mind, 
Thou shalt go with soul untroubled 
To the mysteries behind ; 

" Pass unmoved the silent portal 
Where beatitude begins, 
With an equal balance bearing 
Thy misfortunes and thy sins." 

Treading soft the leaf-spread carpet, 
Thus the Spirits talked with me ; 
And I left my valley, musing 
On their gracious prophecy. 

To my fiery youth's ambition 
Such a boon were scarcely dear : 
" Thou shalt live to be a grandame. 
Work and die, devoid of fear." 

" Now, as utmost grace it steads me, 
Add but this thereto," I said : 

" On the Matron's time-worn mantle 
Let the Poet's wreath be laid." 



ENDEAVOR 

" What hast thou for thy scattered seed, 

O Sower of the plain ? 
Where are the many gathered sheaves 

Thy hope should bring again ? " 
" The only record of my work 

Lies in the buried grain." 

" O Conqueror of a thousand fields ! 

In dinted armor dight, 
What growths of purple amaranth 

Shall crown thy brow of might ? " 
*' Only the blossom of my life 

Flung widely in the fight." 

" What is the harvest of thy saints, 
O God ! who dost abide ? 
Where grow the garlands of thy chiefs 

In blood and sorrow dyed ? 
What have thy servants for their pains ? 
" This only, — to have tried." 
"7 



MEDITATION 

I 

Whether the aim I keep is right, 
So far removed from sense and sight, 
While half the goods that mortals prize 
Lie hidden from my dream-bound eyes, 
And others watch with subtler skill 
To please the toy-bent human will ? 

For this one passions with her glance ; 
And this one weaves her swift romance j 
And this in steadfast marble leaves 
The passing bloom the moment gives ; 
And this one mints the golden coin, 
Attendant on each glad design. 
And in her state well pleased doth ride 
Through streets that saw the Tarquin's pride ; 
While I plod cheerless after thee, 
Thou unattained Philosophy. 

For me no crowd admiring waits, 
Nor lettered venture tempts the Fates, 
Nor hangs my work on princely walls. 
Nor title proud my merit calls, 



MEDITATION 119 

Nor I and marble shall be wed 
Except above my funeral bed. 
Only my diagrams I know ; 
And even these make greater show 
Than thou, O mistress ! dost allow, 
Pent inward by a silent vow. 

But this I boast, — a simpler need, 

That leaves untram.melled time to read 

The sentence of a loftier book 

Than aught that Gain and Rumor brook ; / 

The thrifty urging of the morn 

That waits on nations newly born, 

Bestowing promise more divine 

Than checkered gold at day's decline ; 

Faith that permits and passes growth. 

Embracing God and Nature both. 

The rainbow helps us from the storm ; 
But skies serene are uniform. 
Though colored gems be fair, the white 
Doth keep the undivided light. 
The garden shows its radiant prism. 
The lily hides her golden chrism, 
And Truth and Peace are goods sincere 
That fix the source of comforts near. 



MEDITATION 



II 



Sublime and poor the bards of old 
Their heavenly message heard and told, 
Sequestered from the human crowd, 
Who heed but warnings large and loud. 

Nor velvet robe the prophet had, 

In homely garments bound and clad ; 

Nor dainty table gave them seat 

Who with the gods might take their meat. 

But Jesus poorest was of all ; 

Tended with oxen in the stall ; 

From narrow bounds of household rule 

Devising his immortal school ; 

While mother's toil and father's thrift 

His weighty problems did uplift ; 

And this one's work, and that one's wine, 

Were moulded into types divine. 

The needy fishers were his friends. 

Unlearned companions in his ends ; 

And stripe, and shame, and felon tree 

Aided his deathless victory. 



MEDITATION 121 

So, Soul, be steadfast in thy lot, 
In marble shade or rustic cot : 
Permit the wealth the Fates bestow, 
But in its void no pining know. 

The richest human treasury, 

The mine of thought, to all is free. 

Let Pleasure mix her shallow drink 

While twines Desert the iron link 

Whose firmness, over time and space, 

Transmits the virtue of the race. 

Though fortunes fail, and prospects frown, 

May Duty keep her matchless crown, 

Nor Desolation bid depart 

The glories of a guileless heart. 



THE HOUSE OF REST 

I WILL build a house of rest, 
Square the corners every one : 
At each angle on his breast 
Shall a cherub take the sun ; 
Rising, risen, sinking, down, 
Weaving day's unequal crown. 

In the chambers, light as air. 
Shall responsive footsteps fall : 
Brother, sister, art thou there ? 
Hush ! we need not jar nor call ; 
Need not turn to seek the face 
Shut in rapture's hiding-place. 

Heavy load and mocking care 
Shall from back and bosom part ; 
Thought shall reach the thrill of prayer, 
Patience plan the dome of art. 
None shall praise or merit claim, 
Not a joy be called by name. 

With a free, unmeasured tread 
Shall we pace the cloisters through : 
Rest, enfranchised, like the Dead ; 



THE HOUSE OF REST 123 

Rest till Love be born anew. 
Weary Thought shall take his time, 
Free of task-work, loosed from rhyme. 

No reproof shall grieve or chill ; 
Every sin doth stand confest ; 
None need murmur, " This was ill : " 
Therefore do they grant us rest ; 
Contemplation making whole 
Every ruin of the soul. 

Pictures shall as softly look 
As in distance shows delight ; 
Slowly shall each saintly book 
Turn its pages in our sight ; 
Not the study's wealth confuse, 
Urging zeal to pale abuse. 

Children through the windows peep, 
Not reproachful, though our own ; 
Hushed the parent passion deep. 
And the household's eager tone. 
One above, divine and true. 
Makes us children like to you. 

Measured bread shall build us up 
At the hospitable board ; 
In Contentment's golden cup 
Is the guileless liquor poured. 



124 THE HOUSE OF REST 

May the beggar pledge the king 
In that spirit gathering. 



Oh ! my house is far away ; 
Yet it sometimes shuts me in. 
Imperfection mars each day 
While the perfect works begin. 
In the house of labor best 
Can I build the house of rest. 



A LEAF FROM THE BRYANT 
CHAPLET 

CELEBRATION OF BRYANT's SEVENTIETH BIRTH- 
DAY, NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 5, 1864 

Friends who greet the crowned Poet, who detain 

the passing year 
With the love that knows no passing, I attend your 

summons here. 
Had ye suffered me in silence. I had thanked your 

courteous grace ; 
Happier yet, in rites so cordial, to have utterance 

and place. 

In your city rows palatial has a mansion stood 
apart. 

Not in aspect nor pretension, single in its saintly 
heart : 

When the tides of greed and traffic swept the limits 
of the town, 

'T was a citadel of virtue, and a shrine of pure re- 
nown. 

125 



126 LEAF FROM THE BRYANT CHAPLET 

There the Muse that knew Anacreon, that made 

Roman Horace great, 
Shunning Caesar's jewelled favors, at the modest 

fireside sate. 
Lit the wintry coals with splendor, turned the deep 

historic page, 
Held the burning lamp of Fancy to the problems 

of the age. 

When the great ideas came singly to the crowded 
market-place, 

Looking wanly for a welcome in each money-get- 
ting face. 

And the high police of fashion urged the vagrants 
to give room. 

They, our Chief of song encountering, grew speedily 
at home. 

He had many a measure for us : at his forge he 

wrought twofold, 
On the iron shield of Freedom, and the poet's links 

of gold. 
All the while a song was singing, others better 

knew than he ; 
For the even stanzas of his life made subtlest 

melody. 

He was a veteran leader ere his forehead gained 
its snows ; 



LEAF FROM THE BRYANT CHAPLET 127 

And still before the pilgrim flock his silver sum- 
mons goes. 

No wild and desert waste he brings, with lurid day 
and night, 

But pastures of serenity, and founts of clear de- 
light. 

We have journeyed far to praise him ; let us also 
praise the hour 

For the travail throes of Conscience, and the new- 
est birth of power ; 

Let us praise the faultless victims, and the living, 
who have bent 

O'er the wealth of nature ravished, with a terrible 
consent. 

For Sorrow from the city to the martial camp has 

fled, 
To hunt, with her funereal torch, the features of 

the dead. 
Another and another son the sheaf of Fate doth 

bind, 
But nothing of the thoughts of God, or hope of 

human kind. 

Resurrection in the valley! resurrection on the 

shore ! 
When great Justice is established, we shall have 

our own once more ; 



128 LEAF FROM THE BRYANT CHAPLET 

Not like us, unfixed, inconstant in our issues great 
and small. 

But a phalanx set in marble for the future's judg- 
ment call. 

Long remain the noble Poet, priceless hostage of 
our love ! 

Vainly floats the winged message from the banquet 
halls of Jove, 

Vainly voices from Valhalla name the champion of 
the free : 

He has paeans yet to utter, he must crown our vic- 
tory. 

When the moment comes to claim him that must 
come to claim us all, 

Hearts that cherish human longings will be dark- 
ened by his fall ; 

But immortal Truth shall welcome her adorer to her 
breast, 

Saying, " Things are changed between us now. On 
earth I was thy guest." 



"SAVE THE OLD SOUTH!" 

Two hands the God of Nature gave, 
One swift to smite, one fond to save. 
Betwixt the cradle and the grave. 

Where Strength hews out his stony stent, 
Where woods are felled and metals blent, 
The right hand measures his content. 

Where Skill sits tireless at her loom. 
Where beauty wafts her transient bloom, 
The tender saving hand has room. 

And Fate, as in a tourney fine, 

The differing powers does match and join. 

That each may wear the crown divine. 

But manhood in its zeal and haste 
Leaves cruel overthrow and waste 
Upon its pathway, roughly traced. 

Then woman comes with patient hand. 
With loving heart of high command, 
To save the councils of the land. 
129 



[30 SAVE THE OLD SOUTH 

Round this old church so poor to see, 
Record of years that swiftly flee, 
She draws the chain of sympathy. 

The men who make their gold their weal. 
Who guard with powder and with steel, 
Have not a weapon she can feel. 

Before the venerable pile, 
Armed with a reason and a smile. 
She stations with benignant wile. 

Like Barbara Frietchie in her day. 
She has a royal will to say : 
" You shall not tear one stone away.'* 

You disavow the spirit need 
That avarice may build with heed 
The gilded monuments of greed. 

What hope, what help can patriots know } 
Only this counter mandate slow, 
" The mothers will not have it so." 

Mothers ! the wrongs of ages wait ! 
Amend them, ministers of fate ! 
Redeem the church, reform the state ! 



A SPRING THOUGHT 

Overgrow my grave, 

Kindly grass ; 
Do not wave 

To those who pass 
A single mournful thought 
Of affection come to nought. 

Look up to the blue 

Where, light-hid, 
Lives what doth renew 
Man's chrysalid. 
Say not : She is here, 
Say not : She was there. 
Say : She lives in God, 
Reigning everywhere. 
131 



IN COLOGNE CATHEDRAL 

I FELT the glories of the ancient shrine 
Wrap me about with harmonies divine. 
The childlike faith, the earnest sacrifice, 
The inspiration of the truly wise. 

Here musing souls for centuries have prayed, 
Here hath man's bleeding heart atonement made. 
What throngs devout, what aspirations vast 
People the dreamy regions of the Past ! 

But now the splendors of the later thought 
Break on my dream, deliverance dearly bought 
By martyr spirits that could waste and burn 
With pangs enforced, our liberties to earn. 

Above the mass-bell the clear sentence rings, 
Above the incense soar the angels' wings ; 
And for the mystic sentence, hid in light, 
I see uprise the prophet's brow of might. 
Chiding us human children from our toys, 
Meting our tasks out with unflinching voice. 

holy Past ! O Future, dear to me ! 

1 stand between in God's eternity. 

132 



THE BROWN SHEAVES OF THE BEL- 
GIAN HARVEST 

Fair sere sisters, in your girth 
Rests the sweetness of the earth. 
In decorous rows ye stand, 
With the riches of the land. 

Summer flowers unfold and die 
While, without complaint or sigh 
Ye endure the sun's warm eye. 

Russet Nuns, these meadows fair 
Measured for your cloister are. 
You are cumbered by no vows, 
Shut within no sterile house, 
This your lovely task assigned, 
To refresh all human kind. 
Rustic hearts at break of day 
From your lines their matins say, 
And, when hours of work decline, 
Nod to you their vespers fine. 

In the freedom of the fields 
Blazon your ancestral shields, 
133 



134 THE BROWN SHEAVES 

And your mystical device 
Dates from oldest paradise. 
Silver cloudlets, globe of or^ 
Azure field, forevermore, 
Gules of sunset, verging on 
To the Night's ensabled tone. 

Not alone to offer bread 
Was your ministration sped, 
But to nerve man's arm to toil, 
Bringing treasure from the soil, 
Building peace for mate and child. 
Better than the huntsman wild. 
Showing how Life's fountain springs 
From the lowliest of things. 
From the nurture of the sod 
Soul that sees the face of God. 



IN ROME 

1877 

A Pope was buried, a Pope is made, 
Scarce out of hearing, a king lies dead. 
The world is full of wonder and noise, 
The world is full of doubting and choice. 
And Faith and Freedom, the two God gave 
In one blest birth, to help and save. 
Threaten each other from either grave. 

But here in the broad street lying before 

The ancient columns that watch my door, 

1 he diggers have brought a form to light, 

A vestal, clad in her garments white, 

A figure of energy and bloom 

Carved on the slab of an ancient tomb, 

Mocking the ashes that lay in earth 

With the vanished beauty and stolen worth. 

Busy people who pass this way, 
Lessen their hurry and delay 
To look on the calm that from ages past 
Leaves its sweet record in marble massed. 
To me a hope arose from the pit, 
As when Israel's future was hid in it. 
135 



136 IN ROME 

And in this chaos of fight and feud, 

With the murderous battle-interlude, 

And the minds of men so ill-combined 

Against the foes of our human-kind — 

It seemed that the diggers of reasons deep 

Might rouse a form from her silent sleep, 

And Truth, the vestal crowned with flame. 

Truth, the name beyond every name. 

Wearing her solemn, sweet aspect, 

Ev'n though with earth stains marred and flecked, 

Might stay the headlong and calm the strife 

With the inner spell of her spirit life. 

Match the loud paean with holy psalm, 

And heal all wounds with eternal calm. 



NEAR AMALFI 

Hurry, hurry, little town, 
With thy labor up and down. 
Clang the forge and roll the wheels. 
Spring the shuttle, twirl the reels. 
Hunger comes. 

Every woman with her hand 
Shares the labor of the land ; 
Every child the burthen bears 
And the soil of labor wears. 
Hunger comes. 

In the shops are wine and oil 
For the scanty house of toil ; 
Give just measure, housewife grave, 
Thrifty shouldst thou be and brave. 
Hunger comes. 

Only here the blind man lags. 
Here the cripple clothed with rags. 
Such a motley Lazarus 
Shakes his piteous cap at us. 
Hunger comeSo 
137 



138 NEAR AMALFI 

Oh ! could Jesus pass this way 
Ye should have no need to pray. 
He would go on foot to see 
All your depths of misery. 
Succor comes. 

He would smooth the frowzled hair, 
He would lay your ulcers bare, 
He would heal as.only can 
Soul of God in heart of man. 
Jesu comes. 

Ah ! my Jesus ! still thy breath 
Thrills the world untouched of death, 
Thy dear doctrine sheweth me 
Here, God's loved humanity 

Whose kingdom comes. 



MICHAEL ANGELO'S TWILIGHT 

The dreamy twilight of a day far spent 
Built up to noon with swift, sublime intent, 
Till, where the verticed light each failure shows, 
Thought made his pause, new reasons to disclose. 

Oh ! had I elsewhere started, elsewise wrought, 
The high perfection were not vainly sought. 
I made the daring leap, some foible sure 
My course diverted, greater wit might cure. 

The shadows of the waning day come on. 

I mark where touched my flight its highest zone. 

I see my toilsome traces high in air 

Sowing their broken splendors everywhere. 

The true antithesis of work and rest 
I seek, oh, mystic Twilight, in thy breast. 
Night hesitates to light her sheaf of stars. 
And I, a pilgrim, linger at the bars. 
139 



VICTOR EMANUEL 

Rome, 1877 

It was a voice of woe that said : 
Cease all your sports, the King is dead. 
The changeful face of human-kind 
Grew in an instant sorrow-blind, 
Turned inward from the visual ray- 
That lights the images of day 
To that dark plexus, most divine. 
In which man's life and death entwine. 

We saw him scarce two weeks ago. 
Where makes the mount its circling show, 
There, blithe and bowing, round he drove. 
Giving and taking signs of love. 

Now shall we see his mortal spoil 
All sacred with anointing oil, 
The waxen tapers counterfeit 
The firmament in lighted state, 
The royal ermine drapes the wall. 
The royal emblems gathered all. 
And here, above the cushioned crown, 
The form, supported on the throne, 
140 



VICTOR EMANUEL 141 

The passive hands have held their last, 
The head and heart are marble cast, 
And princes wait, and friars pray, 
Around Death's silent holiday. 

Before they seal him in the tomb. 
One shout must break the Nation's gloom, 
One generous word of royal cheer 
Shall ring in that unburied ear. 
If aught could stir the frozen pulse, 
The passive frame with life convulse, 
'T would be this cry from sorrow sent, 
Joy mingling with our ill-content. 
The Past doth veil its gracious face, 
Th' eternal Present takes its place. 

Dead father, now thy child will swear 
To keep thy charge with fostering care. 
Thy battles he shall crown with peace. 
With him the latest strife shall cease, 
And black and white shall blended be, 
Before his radiant majesty. 
So, while within the chapel's air 
Reign silent Grief and ghostly prayer, 
Without, let jocund trumpets ring, 
The King is dead — long live the King ! 



DEDICATORY POEM 

FOR THE KINDERGARTEN FOR THE BLIND 

NATURE 

Nature, from wintry sleep awake, 
Her icy armor doth forsake ; 
As her swift currents start again, 
The Easter anthems sound amen ; 
And lilies, white as angel's wing, 
Herald the beauty of the spring. 

Now Spring should make all creatures glad, 

With promise she has ever had, 

With message, told in perfumed breath, 

Of resurrection conquering death ; 

But her delights of form and hue 

Our sightless children never knew. 

Only with wondering thought they hear 
Rehearsed the glories of the year. 
And dimly seek their doubtful way 
Untutored by the smile of day ; 
While we, the prodigals of light, 
Grow careless of the boon of sight. 
142 



DEDICATORY POEM 143 

Dread fate, in solitude to sit, 
Unconscious of the clouds that flit 
Beholding ne'er the rose of dawn, 
Nor sunset's varied hues withdrawn, 
Nor stars with which, above, around. 
The majesty of night is crowned. 

But Heaven, that sees this painful doom. 
Has still some flower of choicest bloom, 
Has still some gem of priceless worth 
For these inheritors of earth. 

For them may Wisdom spread her page, 
Bequeathing wealth from age to age ; 
To them make known, in time and place, 
The great exemplars of our race. 
Its heroes shall their courage raise j 
Its saints inspire their prayer and praise j 
Its music join their happy bands ; 
Its skill instruct their tender hands. 

We plant this field, to God most dear, 
In the sweet spring of childhood's year ; 
Aid us, good neighbors, in our need, 
To sow it with immortal seed. 

We do not know, we cannot guess, 
What harvesting of blessedness, 
Of docile heart and thoughtful mind. 
Good husbandry may reap and bind ; 



144 DEDICATORY POEM 

But well we deem that in the height 
Where governs the supernal light, 
Joy shall reward the service wrought, 
Pay tenfold back the tribute brought, 
And with our sheaves your names shall be 
Bound in God's golden granary. 



THE LAST SUNDAY OF OCTOBER 

I AM rich in my pond and its willows ; 

I am rich in my crimson trees ; 
In the autumn's golden coinage 

Which falls with the stirring breeze. 

In the sky's soft brow of azure, 

Where every morning's rays 
Make merciful erasure 

Of the frown of darkest days. 

I am rich in the winds whose cadence 

So solemnly doth blow, 
As the hours in still procession 

Towards the noon's high mass do go. 

So I thought, this Sunday morning, 
As I walked and mused alone ; 

Seeking to enter God's temple. 
And finding it, not in stone. 
145 



GOLDEN WEDDINGS 

In Heaven, methinks. there rings the chime 
Of golden weddings all the time. 
There Faith and dear Experience meet, 
There Youth retains its fancy fleet. 
While no sad frailty brings divorce 
'Twixt purpose high and helpful force. 

There in God's keeping we shall find 
The generations left behind : 
There, in our turn, shall we await 
Our own Descendants' furthest fate, 
Fed all at one ancestral board, 
All, children of one loving Lord. 
146 



SELF-COMMUNINGS 

I READ a record poor and mean, 
From which Time lifts the glittering screen 
Evil pursued, good left undone. 
From break of dawn to set of sun. 
What shall the judgment Angel write ? 
Lord, let thy hammer smite ! 

My soul hath ta'en her easy seat 
On many a monstrous false conceit, 
With flimsy sceptre, bubble-blown ; 
Mankind should worship at her throne. 
What shall the true King's sentence write ? 
Quick, let the hammer smite ! 

Oh ! garish hunt of worldly joys ! 
Thy gilded bugles make brave noise, 
But when the gay pursuit is crowned. 
The laughing fiend alone is found. 
Lord, let thy hammer smite ! 

But, Lord, this sinner was not I : 
With thee my soul's aspirings lie ; 
Dispel thou the fantastic dream. 
Take back the vapor to the stream ! 
Lord, with thy sunlight smite ! 
147 



RUBIES IN THE WATCH 

The costliest gem of the mine 

That in diadems royal doth shine 

Sometimes takes its place with the spring 

Of a common mechanical thing, 

Of a thing that the humblest may use, 

The proudest be sorry to lose. 

If the poems that I try to indite 
Do not come into honor and light, 
Are not set in the century's crown 
Of the glorious things written down, 

Yet may they be helpful to hold 
Some heart in its casing of gold, 
And mark how time-conquests are won 
By the fine wheels that ceaselessly run. 
As stars mark in blue dials of space. 
The noon and the night of God's grace. 
148 



TO DEATH 

Knock at this lowly cottage door ; 

Say to its drudge : Thy task is o'er. 

Long labor hadst thou, scanty wage ; 

Thy youth scarce built to shield thine age. 

Thine was the boon of hard earned bread, 

The slumber of the workman's bed ; 
Some broken dreams, some harmless pride, 
Some hopes of heaven, by few denied ; 
In faith and hope and charity 
As thou hast done, be done to thee. 

Enter, unasked, yon lordly pile 
Where flatterers cringe and varlets smile. 
Go where the jewels bravest flash. 
The perfumes breathe, the goblets clash. 
Say to each pampered inm.ate : Lo ! 
The lapse of time doth end thy show. 
Thy wealth shall fill another's hand, 
A stranger in thy room shall stand. 
By faith and hope and charity. 
As thou hast done, be done to thee. 
149 



THE GIFTS OF THE WISE 

Let me go in with the kings 

To the presence of God most high. 

Their girdles are full of precious things 
As they royally pass me by. 

Each, as he went, let fall 

A jewel in my hand. 
But the alms they flung were poor and small 

To the boon I would command. 

I lay on the stones without, 

I clamored at the door ; 
They 've given me gifts of nought, of nought 

The presence I covet more. 

Out from the heavenly court 

Came a sentence sweet and strong : 
" Only to those of high report 
The presence doth belong. 

" And one did give thee a heart 
For the bauble in thy breast, 
That might in holy life take part 
With impulse pure and blest. 

150 



THE GIFTS OF THE WISE 

" And one did give thee an eye 
In the universe to see 
The laws that it was fashioned by, 
And how they all agree. 

" And one did give thee an ear 
For doctrine lofty and deep 
Of how man's spirit without fear 
May pass from the mortal sleep. 

" When each surpassing boon 
Thou takest as it was given, 
In their fit use thou 'It find full soon 
The master-key of heaven." 



ON THE DEATH OF A GRANDCHILD 

I 
Before the azure gate of heaven 

An infant doth appear ; 
The golden hinges softly turn 

T' admit the pilgrim dear. 

Oh ! pretty one, what hast thou done 
To earn repose so soon ? 
" Unto my parents dear I sang 
My little lisping rune." 

How cam'st thou hither, Babe beloved ? 

Thy feet were not so strong 
That thou couldst cross thy nursery floor ; 

" My journey was not long ! " 

" The morning Star was given to be 
The planet of my birth ; 
And, as it flitted from the sky, 
I flitted from the earth." 

II 
Baby Maud doth beckon me 

That I cross the frozen sea ; 
152 



ON THE DEATH OF A GRANDCHILD 153 

" Grandame, 't is a journey light 
As to take your sleep at night." 

Little Babe had little load ; 
Not a life-time ill-bestowed, 
Not contrition deep and drear, 
Shadowy doubt, or fitful fear. 

The deceitful ice might crack 
'Neath the weight upon my back ; 
But when I must cross that sea, 
Baby Maud shall comfort me. 

Ill 
Our Baby holds her little court 
Where pretty things do make her sport ; 
The buds that open not, nor fall. 
Are stationed in her silent hall j 
The gracious Dove, divinest held 
By all the reverend souls of eld, 
To her a sweet companion grows. 
Whitening above the whitest rose. 

The lily crown shall never fade 

That on her lowly mound is laid ; 

For not in vain she saw the light, 

Nor, with poor errand, passed from sight, 

But, in her one short year of home, 

The little Babe did overcome. 



AFTER HEARING COQUELIN 

I PAID my gold at the theatre door, 

And it almost seemed a sin 
To spend the alms that might bless the poor 

For the pleasure I sought within. 

" And yet," I said, " Life itself is spent 
As the cost of a few delights ; 
So far do its years of ill content 
Outnumber its joyous sights. 

The ^thiop cast her pearl in the cup ; 

But I from my gold shall bring 
The rainbow hues of a soul lit up 

For the dark vault's conquering. 

I gave my fee, and I had my gem ; 

In memory still it shines, 
And Art's immortal diadem 

Its varying charm enshrines. 

But now my thoughts are almost sad. 

And still a boon they crave, 
A fitting gift for the joy I had, 

Returning, as he gave. 

154 



AT HOME 

My study is bestrewed with wreck, 
Things of past days, in use no more ; 

When treasures now my walls should deck, 
I view my relics o'er and o'er, 

And fear to cast the form away 
Which held my idol for a day. 

Most like the room wherein I move, 

My heart is full of broken toys, 
Of symbols once akin to love, 

Of outgrown faiths, and outlived joys. 
Oh ! Thou to whom all space is near, 

Make room for thy new giving here ! 
155 



A THOUGHT FOR WASHING DAY 

The clothes-line is a Rosary 
Of household help and care ; 

Each little saint the Mother loves 
Is represented there. 

And when across her garden plot 
She walks, with thoughtful heed, 

I should not wonder if she told 
Each garment for a bead. 

For Celia's scarlet stockings hang 

Beside Amelia's skirt, 
And Bilbo's breeches, which of late 

Were sadly smeared with dirt. 

Yon kerchief small wiped bitter tears 

For ill-success at school ; 
This pinafore was torn in strife 

'Twixt Fred and little Jule. 

And that device of finer web. 

And over-costly lace, 
Adorned our Eldest when she danced 

At some gay fashion place. 
156 



A THOUGHT FOR WASHING DAY 157 

A stranger passing, I salute 

The Household in its wear, 
And smile to think how near of kin 

Are love and toil and prayer. 



OVER THE KNEADING-TROUGH 

The Saviour said his word of truth 

Was like a leaven fine 
That made the bread of common life 

To match the spirit-wine. 

From oldest time, when shepherds dwelt 

In tents of hair outspread, 
This art was ordered with the law 

That man should live by bread. 

By bread, but " not by bread alone " 

The spirit hath its need, 
And on the ministry of truth 

Its growing strength must feed. 

My practised hand the loaf can mouldy 

With careful touch and swift, 
While my thoughts seek what Faith can bring 

From Life's surpassing gift. 
158 



FROM THE WINDOW 

Curse me that hand-organ man ! 

How he spoils his airs 
With mechanic grinding, 

As bigots spoil their prayers. 

In my crimson parlor 
Beethoven shall reign ; 

Handel, Mozart, Wagner ; 
Mongrels I disdain. 



See the merry hackmen 

Dancing in the cold, 
And the beggar swaying 

To the rhythm trolled. 

And as I go creeping 

On this icy way, 
Winter seems to hearken 

To the song of May. 

The music of the streets is kin 
To God's own harmony ; 

So, bless me that hand-organ man, 
And give him double fee ! 
159 



THE LADDER OF PRAYER 

The mystical ladder of Prayer 

Is set for our use everywhere. 

Our thoughts, weary angels, ascend, 

To seek our Omnipotent Friend, 

While His messengers, radiant with light, 

Bring Heaven itself to our sight. 

i6o 



ON HEARING ONE COMPLAIN 

"there is no one to die and leave us 

MONEY " 

Live, my beloved ones ! live, and make us rich 
With Life's sweet treasures of humanity. 
Feed not the cruel agony and itch 
Of souls distrained to Luxury's sharp pitch, 
But let us earn our modest joys, and be 
Richer in service than its moneyed fee. 
i6i 



QUATRAIN 

IN PRAISE OF E. P. P. ^ 

What shall we give to thee, O princely heart, 
That nothing for thyself dost seek apart ? 
God in that liberal vein enriched thee so 
That little 's left for Friendship to bestow. 

1 Elizabeth Palmer Peabody. 
162 



SUPPLIANTS 

" What right hast thou to knock at my door ? " 
Dear Lord, a beggar did knock before, 
And a woman weighted with deadly sin 
Just called on your name and so passed in. 

" What he wanted the beggar knew ; 
His rags were real, and his hunger true. 
You have clothes to cover you, food to live, 
What do you need that I needs must give ? 

" The Woman fled from the touch of shame. 
No credit shielded her blasted name ; 
But thou art quoted as rich and gay 
By thpse who are both, so I say thee nay." 

Ah Lord ! the beggar faints not for food 
As I for the truth of thy kingdom good, 
Nor hath the wretch from the streets appealed 
More nearly than I for thy mercy's shield. 

Great need of Humanity ! Hunger divine ! 
God's fatherhood, feed thou this spirit of mine ! 
And in the self- judgment which me doth abase. 
With the poor and the sinful, let me see thy face. 
163 



MIDDLE AGE 

Left alone with the cows to-day, 
The younger members all gone away ; 
The trees would go, but their roots are set, 
Their patent of freedom not made out yet. 
So here I sit, in state serene, 
Every one's servant and no one's queen. 
Watching the butterflies bright and brown. 
That float like leaves from God's autumn crown. 

My children are chasing the swift delight 
Oft neared, but ne'er o'ertaken quite : 
The sweet cup fails from the lips too soon, 
The harmony waits for its perfect tune ; 
In bluest ether some scutcheon dark 
Heralds the storm-fiend to the bark ; 
God's monitors set, if the sense should pall, 
To whisper the spirit : " This is not all." 

The grave of the Past in my garden lies 
For daily and hourly sacrifice. 
The Christ life blesses my daily care. 
For his is the lesson and his the prayer. 
But the endless Future touches me too 
In the unseen Babe that, old and new, 
164 



MIDDLE AGE 165 

Is carried along in the household ways 
With its waiting mother, too dear for praise. 

I look at the ancient blue on high 
That saw the first Parents live and die, 
By this very sun which, burning still, 
Mirrors God's patient and constant will. 
And I look below at the ancient green 
Where the life of the aeons has garnered been ; 
There, standing where others stand between, 
I study the lesson of human fate 
On the wondrous page, at my narrow date. 

And this later freedom, this thoughtful calm 
That sobers the strophe and quickens the psalm. 
That gathers the blessing and loses the pain. 
And counts nought for lost in the final gain, 
And the children, born without pangs of mine, 
And the dreams that in young eyes dazzle and 

shine, 
And the faith that follows the prophet's soul 
Where truth unseen has its distant goal. 
Let me end the song ere I turn the page, — 
All this is the burthen of middle age. 



LENT 

In remembrance of me, 

When the days come round, 

Leave your jollity, 

Pleasures of sight and sound ! 

Take your burthen some sins 
To the desert of thought ; 

Think how one who was bound 
Man's deliverance wrought. 

Think how one who was shamed, 
Hanging upon the tree, 

Shows the glory of God 
To humanity. 

He was lowly and poor, 

Never a roof did own ; 
High o'er the starry floor 

Shineth his sapphire throne. 

All the spirits of light 
Gather to do him weal : 

Hail thou, mighty to help ! 
Hail thou, gracious to heal ! 

1 66 



LENT 167 

Hail thou, tasting alone 

Bitterest cup of death : 
Hail thou, Conqueror grown, 

Jesus of Nazareth ! 



A SHADOW IN THE CHRISTMAS 
LIGHT 

December 25, 1892 

The Christmas-tide was at its height, 
And in the hall a joyous throng, 

Their faces radiant with delight. 
Waited for Handel's master song. 

The comfort that the seer foretold. 
The message by the angels brought, 

The shepherds watching by their fold. 
The Babe, of Orient pilgrims sought. 

And thence, the scaffolding of Faith, 
That builds her way to very Heaven, 

The triumph over sin and Death, 

The eternal promise sealed and given. 

And " Lord of Lords " and " King of Kings,' 
The chorus thundered in its might ; 

The ransom of created things. 
The crown of victory and light. 
168 



A SHADOW IN CHRISTMAS LIGHT 169 

In all that music glad and loud, 

A secret sentence came to me ; 
Amid the plaudits of the crowd 

It only whispered " Calvary." 

Then from the ecstasy of sound 

My spirit fled, in dark divorce, 
To where a victim, stretched and bound. 

Hung in the iron grasp of force. 

In the gloom-gathering eventide, 
Dank with its dews upon his head, 

With bleeding hands and pierced side. 
The Christ of whom they sing is dead. 

Oh ! for one moment of the power 

To taste that deep abysmal cup. 
Serenely, in that fatal hour 

To drink its bitter blackness up. 

Commend me to that breaking heart 
Which still its cry could Godward lift ; 

Let me rehearse the humblest part 
In that immortal, sinless shrift ! 

The world doth oft its tyrants praise. 

Crowns them with splendor and with song, 

Unworthy brows still wear the bays 
That to earth's heroes should belong. 



70 A SHADOW IN CHRISTMAS LIGHT 

But when to help our human need 
This witness met the death abhorred, 

Content to agonize and bleed, 

Then was he King, then was he Lord ! 

The Earth is promised to the meek, 
The pure in heart their God shall see ; 

But when Life's boon supreme I seek, 
Lend me thy glory, Calvary. 



HENRY WARD BEECHER 

PREACHER, POET, PHILANTHROPIST 

Like a fountain that upsprings 

In a desert wild and drear, 
Like a clarion note that rings 

Through the fastnesses of fear ; 

Like a fortress on a rock, 

Set to guard a wide domain. 
Sheltering the affrighted flock 

When destruction sweeps the plain ; 

Like a storm whose grandeur wild 
Takes its way at heaven's behest ; 

Like a Samson undefiled, 
To untruth a fatal guest ; 

Thus, with thoughts that flame and soar, 
Thus, with spirit weaponed hand. 

For dear peace and righteous war, 
Stood our preacher in the land. 

Gracious nature, graceful art. 

Wove for him their blended crown ; 
171 



72 HENRY WARD BEECHER 

He could bless with brimming heart, 
He could call God's thunder down. 



Bitter woes of humankind ! 

Sin and sorrow, grief and wrong. 
Was he to your beckoning blind ? 

Did he slight you in his song ? 

And the mystic things of God 
That we dimly apprehend, 

Did he tread them, roughly shod, 
Shatter beauties without end ? 

No, those treasures dearly bought 
Are beyond the reach of fate ; 

They are builded in our thought. 
They are welded in our state. 

On the solemn judgment mount 
He methinks may fearless stand. 

For the final, dread account, 
With his record in his hand. 

A great army would attest 
The true succor that he gave 

To the poor God loveth best, 
To the woman, to the slave ! 

He once more may fitly pray 

If a prayer can sound in heaven : 



HENRY WARD BEECHER i73 

" Be God's help to me this day, 
As the help that I have given." 

I remember well the thrill 

Multitudes were glad to share 

When the solemn aisles did fill 
With the music of his prayer ; 

With his sermon wisely planned, 
Reasoned with a master's might ; 

Faith's illuminating hand 
Touched its sentences with light. 

That we had him is a boon 

That commands a song of praise ; 

That we lose him oversoon 
Is a grief for all our days. 



WHAT I SAW FROM MY WINDOW 

Newport, 1890 

The telegraph pole is a mast, 

And the cloud is a misty sail ; 
And yon great gold star is the lantern fast 

That tempests cannot pale. 

Oh ! where does the dream-ship drift, 
With my cherished dead on board ? 

Yon close-shut heaven reveals no rift 
Of that country unexplored. 

But surely on their way 

Does Faith, like a lantern, shine, 

And blue seas of God's providence 
Bear up their bark and mine. 
174 



IN THE GREAT JUNE HEAT 

1891 

God send sweet airs to those who dig 

The ground, this warm June day 1 
Their straining sinews serve his law, 

While here for them I pray. 
This haughty personage whose thoughts 

Aspire to God on high, 
Has in the lowly fields its root, 

And lives by husbandry. 

Man doth not live by bread alone ; 

Sure husbandmen may know 
The height of human destiny, 

The depth of human woe. 
The hind hath need of nurture good, 

Of dignity and power, 
Of lessons that his tasks reveal, 

The harvest and the flower. 

Dear Mother Earth, whose alchemy 
Turns Death to Life again, 

And from his whispered secrets brings 
Spring's beautiful refrain, 

175 



176 IN THE GREAT JUNE HEAT 

Reflect for them God's providence, 
And while they serve our need, 

May Faith's unmoneyed recompense 
Their spirit hunger feed ! 



NIGHT IN THE TROPICS 

The heavens are hung with gems so bright, 
Sure this must be a gala night 
To which the winged clouds invite. 

Each fleecy messenger doth fly 
Hunting his angel thro' the sky, 
Averring : Sent for thee am I. 

But now the moon in silver sheen 
Looks listless o'er the velvet screen 
She soon shall overtop serene ; 

Like some great lady, coming late, 
Whose glory must complete the state 
For which the strings and dancers wait. 

Nor must the eye be fed alone ; 
The ear attests in undertone 
The music of the sea beach lone. 

And now the stars are out of sight 
The moon doth set, with sovereign right 
Her beauty in a dome of light. 

177 



178 NIGHT IN THE TROPICS 

Oh ! feast of silence and of thought, 
Oh ! restful night, of labor wrought, 
Oh ! crown of all, God's over thought. 
Samana, May 4. 



THE SPIRIT OF THE FLOWERS 

The Lily praises God with open heart, 

The Rose in perfumed chambers prays apart. 

The Tulip flashes like a trumpet's blare 

Love's blood-red banner answering Love's prayer. 

Crocus and Daisy their snug secrets keep, 
Of the spring wakening and the winter sleep : 

While lowly Grass and Dandelion lay 
Their green and gold to deck the King's highway. 
179 



AT TWILIGHT 

From my small store of learning must I feed 
Such as my simple counsel ask and heed. 

I sit beside the crimson bier of Day, 
Whose hours with my endeavors flow away. 

Oh ! Source of wisdom, back to thee I call, 
From thought whose shallows and whose depths 
appal. 

Here, in this outspread parchment of the skies, 
Let some bright sentence fix my wandering eyes ! 

Then in the heav'n above me, lo ! afar, 
God lit the candle of the Evening Star. 

i8o 



CHRISTMAS VOICES 

THE MANY 

Th' o'er-mastered voice of Nature speaks ; 
Th' o'er-burthened Earth her ransom seeks. 
Low cringing at the Despot's stool, 
Mankind aspires to higher rule. 
The multitudes with bitter cry 
Lift their despairing hands on high, 
Praying for succor from afar — 
The token of an answering star. 

Sure, on the gloom in which we dwell 
In ages past, some lustre fell. 
Some agency without a name 
Touched our rude sense with quickening flame ; 
Some voice divine, some promise fair 
Moved us to worship and to prayer. 
But now our oracles are still. 
Our altars desolate and chill ; 
Oh ! could that better light return — 
That beacon-fire before us burn ! 
Could some bright message from the sky 
The power reveal that rules on high ! " 
i8i 



i82 CHRISTMAS VOICES 

THE THREE 

From Orient's spicy groves we come ; 
Beyond the desert lies our home 
Where, grand with jewels and with gold, 
Our haughty kings their sceptres hold. 

We journey far, and not of choice, 
In answer to a warning voice : 
" Forsake the purple gates of morn, 
Westward the world's true King is born." 
Him should our thoughts more fitly deem 
Cradled in groves of Academe, 
Or where the circling chariots speed 
And bards rehearse the victor's meed : 
Or nursed at Egypt's awful shrine 
Where wells the wondrous flood divine. 
But 'mid the stars our guiding light 
Hither doth lead — by day and night ; 
We follow with unwearied feet. 
The portent of the fates to greet. 

STROPHE FIRST 

Give us comfort. Aphrodite, thou art fair, 

Lo ! the sunbeams light the meshes of thy hair : 

And thy car is drawn by doves 

To the height of human loves. 
While thy perfumes float, like incense, on the 
air. 



CHRISTMAS VOICES 183 

ANTI-STROPHE FIRST 

Nay — the joys I bring are ravishing, but brief, 
And my servants shun the lonely house of grief. 

All my songs are tuned to pleasure, 

To the dancing Lydian measure — 
Not of me is born the soul-commanding chief. 

STROPHE SECOND 

Mother Isis, with the lotus blossom crowned, 
Shall Earth's rescue in thy child beloved be found ? 

Wilt thou loose him from thy arms, 

With his amulets and charms, 
That the song of our redemption may resound ? 

ANTI-STROPHE SECOND 

Ye unhappy ones, no succor seek from me, 
I am pledged to Death's unfruitful majesty. 

Ever, in sepulchral state, 

Must I mourn my vanished mate, 
And my son alone may bear me company. 



THE ONE 

Then uprose the tender wailing of a child 
Which a maiden-mother, merciful and mild, 
With a sudden joy caressed. 
Shielded soft upon her breast. 
Unto Israel's God devoted, undefiled. 



i84 CHRISTMAS VOICES 

" What of thee, O mother, born in lowlihood ? 
Are those veins of thine enriched with royal blood ? 

Shall this tiny infant hand 

Give the law to every land ? 
Hast thou brought to light the everlasting good ? '* 

As they listen, lo ! a wondrous prophecy 
Of the glorious deliverance yet to be 

With the infant's tones did blend ; 

And their seeking was at end — 
They had found the monarch they were fain to see. 

" Whoso struggles for his life mid grief and wrong, 
Let him come to me, with all who labor long ; 
In my heart their woes have place 
And my love shall give them grace — 
I will comfort them with saying and with song. 

" I will bargain their redemption with my blood, 
Heirs of Heav'n are we in holy brotherhood. 

To the ages I bequeath 

But the measure of the breath 
That God breathed on me, renewing and renewed." 



ON THE MUSICAL SERVICE HELD 
IN COMMEMORATION OF JAMES 
RUSSELL LOWELL 

February 22, 1891 

Blocks of sweet sound, whose concourse seemed 

to build 
Arches and aisles where our Beloved might walk 
Free from the touch of our familiar talk, 
Rapt in the ecstasy of things revealed. 

Music hath power above a grave to rear 
The temple of a majesty divine ; 
The outer glory, and the inner shrine, 
And choir, where the immortal spirits cheer. 

"Within such bounds our Friend should be at home, 
The monumental Past beneath his feet 
While he looks upward, well content to greet. 
Silent no more, the angels of the dome. 

What visions brave should open to his ken, 
Dante's great journeys, Angelo's just fame, 
Savonarola's heart and robe of flame, 

The galaxy of earth's illustrious men. 
185 



i86 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 

And as he looks and listens, in his breast 
A fount of deep contentment is unsealed : 
" I too made answer when the Right appealed, 
And sang my noblest song at Truth's behest." 

Dearer than Poet's wreath or Victor's meed 
Or boons fantastical for which men pray, 
The reverence and service of his day, 
The championship of Freedom in her need. 

What shall God grant him ? Mercy, peace, and rest, 
The crown of large desert and soaring thought, 
The lesson to his time and country brought. 
The light unending of the ever blest. 



THE CENTENNIAL OF WILLIAM 
CULLEN BRYANT'S BIRTH i 

The age its latest decade shows, 
The wondrous century nears its close, 
Revealing in its fateful span, 
Unwonted ways of good to man. 

Imprisoned vapor speeds its course, 
Flies, quick with life, th' electric force. 
Nature's daemonic mysteries 
Are angels now that win and please. 

Above the wild industrial din. 
The race an hundred goals to win, 
The gathered wealth, the rifled mine, 
Still sounds the poet's song divine ; 

And Skill that marshals myriad hands 
For manhood's task in many lands. 
Attunes her anvil by the lyre. 
And forges with Promethean fire. 

O master of imperial lays. 
Crowned in the fullness of thy days, 
1 Celebrated at Cummington, Mass.,. November 3, 1894. 
187 



i88 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

One heart that owns thy gracious spell 
Thy reverend mien remembers well. 

For mine it was, ere fell the snow 
Upon this head of long ago, 
My modest wreath to intertwine 
With richer offerings at thy shrine. 

A guest upon that day of days,^ 
How leapt my heart to hymn thy praise ! 
Yea, from that hour my spirit wore 
A high content unknown before. 

The past engulfs these echoes fond ; 
Thou and thy mates have passed beyond, 
And that fair festival appears 
Dim through the vista of long years. 

But love still keeps his watch below, 
When fades from sight the sunset glow. 
And at the challenge of thy name 
Stirs in each heart the loyal flame. 

Still battling on the field of life, 
We break from the unequal strife, 
From task or pastime hasten all 
As at a vanished leader's call. 

1 The celebration of Mr. Bryant's sixtieth birthday by tlie Cen- 
tury Club of New York. 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 189 

Within the shadow of thy tent 
We read again thy testament, 
Review the treasure which thy art 
Bequeathed t' enricli thy country's heart. 

No gift whose precious bloom can fade, 

No holocaust on false shrine laid, 

A legacy of good untold, 

August as oracles of old, 

The winged words that cannot die, 

The world-transcending prophecy. 



A RHYME FOR MEMORIAL DAY 

Keep fond remembrance of thy brave, 
Columbia ! twice by blood redeemed ; 
Once, from thy foes beyond the wave. 
And once from evil nearer outschemed. 

Bring forth the banners, faded now, 
Reconsecrate each stain and rent 
With patriot pledge and solemn vow 
To Freedom's glorious intent. 

Thy champions at the call of Fate 
Their pleasures and their toil forsook, 
They left their firesides desolate, 
But wrote their names in Honor's book. 

Heap high the wreaths above their dust ! 
Sound the war trumpet for their meed, 
But keep thee faithful to the trust 
Bequeathed in each heroic deed. 

Of the shorn beauty of their days 
Let Memory her broad blazon make. 
And point her lesson, while our lays 
Call the land blessed for their sake. 
190 



CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, U. S. A. 

ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED BY 

H. O. HOUGHTON AND CO. 



»*-< 



5 A920 



